Vale confirms tailings dam break at Feijao mine, echoing 2015 Samarco disaster Brasilia | Brazilian rescuers were searching for some 200 missing people after a tailings dam burst on Friday at an iron ore mine owned by Vale, with seven bodies recovered but the death toll expected to rise sharply. Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of the town of Brumadinho where the dam burst in Brazil's mining hub of Minas Gerais state, said seven bodies had been recovered by nightfall. Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said only one-third of the roughly 300 workers at the site of the disaster had been accounted for. He said a torrent of sludge tore through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime. US-listed shares of Vale tumbled as much as 10 per cent after the incident, the second major disaster at a Brazilian tailings dam involving Vale in just over three years. Both hit Minas Gerais, which is still recovering from the collapse of a larger dam in November 2015 that killed 19 people. That dam, owned by a joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton called Samarco Mineracao, buried a nearby village and devastated a major river with toxic waste in Brazil's worst environmental disaster. Operations at Samarco remain halted over legal disputes relating to damages even after the companies settled a $US5.28 billion civil lawsuit last year. Schvartsman said the dam that burst on Friday at the Feijao iron mine was being decommissioned and had a capacity of 12 million cubic meters - a fraction of the roughly 60 million cubic meters of toxic waste released by the Samarco dam break. "The environmental impact should be much less, but the human tragedy is horrible," he told journalists at Vale's offices in Rio de Janeiro. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on January 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed. Fire brigade spokesman Lieutenant Pedro Aihara said the torrent of mud stopped just short of the local Paraopeba river, a tributary of Brazil's longest river, the Sao Francisco. "Our main worry now is to quickly find out where the missing people are," Aihara said on GloboNews cable television channel. Scores of people were trapped in nearby areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam failure. Helicopters plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said. The Feijao mine is one of four in Vale's Paraoeba complex, which includes two processing plants and produced 26 million tonnes of iron ore in 2017, or about 7 per cent of Vale's total output, according to information on the company's website. Feijao alone produced 7.8 million tonnes of ore in 2017. Television reports showed people running away as the dam broke and nearby fields with bean crops destroyed by packed mud. President Jair Bolsonaro said he lamented the accident and sent three cabinet ministers to the area. "We will take all the possible steps to minimise the suffering of families and victims," Bolsonaro said in a speech, which he posted on Twitter. Bolsonaro, who assumed power January 1, planned to tour the area aby helicopter on Saturday. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jumpstart Brazil's economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation. The latest spill "is a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy with Samarco dam, in Mariana, also controlled by Vale", Greenpeace said in a statement. "History repeats itself," tweeted Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and three-time presidential candidate. "It's unacceptable that government and mining companies haven't learned anything." The rivers of mining waste raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vale's website, the mine waste is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster "contained high levels of toxic heavy metals". With AP Reuters https://www.afr.com/business/mining...echoing-2015-samarco-disaster-20190126-h1aih7
Will be interesting to know later on whether there was any signs of fault in the dam known prior to the rupture. Bad weather doesn't look like a factor. It's a safety issue, will be interesting to know if human incompetence with their health & safety department.
Horrific human tragedy. On the stock front- Today Brazil blocked some payouts to Vale (1.3B) and S&P has put them on credit watch for multiple downgrades. FYI- They haven’t even finished paying out for the 2015 disaster.
Latest- 37 dead. 200 still missing. Hundreds more evacuated out of fears that another dam will burst. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...2b11c0-21b8-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html ———————————— Brazil freezes 3B of Vale Assets https://wap.business-standard.com/a...assets-after-dam-disaster-119012700656_1.html
Vale is one of the big 4, BHP, RIO, FMG.AX. (Fortescue) Monday market is closed on ASX but expecting a spike here on Tuesday. I wont enter as am anticipating a mkt pullback shortly, will wait it out and catch it later. Vale will suffer considerable reputational damage. BHP has its own problems, major rail derailment the other week and WestAust Govt suing BHP for lost royalties.
Updating- Brazil Attorney General weighing civil AND criminal charges against Vale. Sadly, they are now saying they don’t expect to find any more survivors among the missing, and the missing total is ~200. Absolutely horrible.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1PM046 Vale suspends dividends, buybacks, and bonuses. Trading ~$12 pre market (-11.9%)