Mariana and Brumadinho

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In November 2015, in a small city called Mariana in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil (literally "General mines", due to it's function during colonization), a ore reject dam with toxic material was expelled by the structure. It ended up with 19 people dead, burried villages and the toxic mud made it to the sea, a whole state away from where it happened. Vale, the company at the time, was fined with trillions but to this day only paid 3%. To this day, population haven't been recompensed. They lost a source of food and the ecosystem still suffers.

In January 25th, in Brumadinho, same state, another mining reject dam from the same company busted. This time, the results so far are 100 dead and 200 disappeared, and the mud seems to be making it's way into São Francisco river, an important water body in the ecosystem and also source of food for several communities around it.

It seems that there are 10 others dams built with the same technology as the other two. All of them dating from 1970s.

The government blocked R$800 millions (in dolars, 220 millions dollars).

The Vale's lawyer wants to get the company's money back. "Vale doesn't see determining reasons of it's responsibility. There was no negligence, malpractice or imprudence. Why a dam rupture? There are so many factors".

Vale is now offering R$100 thousands (or around 30 thousand dollars) for each affected family.

According to the law, this kind of situation fits into an natural accident.

"In a press statement on January 29, Vale announced the decommissioning of all the company's dams that use the upstream method. The company has 10 dams of this type, all of them said to be already inactive. The cost of the change is estimated at R$ 5 billion ($1.3 billion U.S.) and decommissioning will occur over the next three years."

No one was penalized so far.

Do you think the penalties for the company are fair?

Should dams ruptures be considered a natural accident?