It was a Friday. Nayara Porto, then 27 years old, was preparing a pudding for the weekend, her husband Everton Lopes Ferreira’s favorite dessert. After putting it in the oven, she overheard her neighbor talking to an aunt about the “Vale dam” that had ruptured, she recalls. They were referring to the tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão mine in Brumadinho, in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state.

“I was a little confused. Then she called me and asked if my husband was home. I said he wasn’t; he was working. After that, she told me what had happened,” recalls Nayara in an interview with journalist Mara Régia on the program Natureza Viva, on Rádio Nacional, a station of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC). “Then it was total despair,” Nayara remembers.

Notícias relacionadas:

• Hearings over dam collapse in Brumadinho scheduled in Munich.
• UK court finds mining company BHP liable for dam collapse.

“I started trying to talk to him several times, but the phone wouldn’t even ring. Then I tried talking to some of his friends whom I knew were there, until I managed to reach one who had escaped the [tailings] mud, saved by a miracle of God. He said to me: ‘Oh Nayara, pray, ask God.’ The warehouse where my husband worked - the storeroom - was gone; there was nothing left.”

2,557 days

The accident, or “tragedy-crime” as classified by the Association of Families of Victims and Those Affected by the Collapse of the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam (AVABRUM), occurred around 12:30 p.m. on January 25, 2019, killing 272 people. More than 2,500 days after the tragedy, no one has been held criminally responsible.

More than seven years after the event, the possibility emerges that 15 people could be held accountable in court for the accident. Preliminary hearings are scheduled to begin on February 23 in the 2nd Federal Criminal Court of the Belo Horizonte Judicial Subsection. Individuals who survived the disaster, witnesses, and defendants will be heard until May 2027.

At the end of the extensive hearing period, Federal Judge Raquel Vasconcelos Alves de Lima may decide to take the case to a jury trial. Fifteen people could face criminal charges: eleven former directors, managers, and engineers of Vale, privatized in 1997, and four employees of TÜV SÜD, a multinational company with German capital contracted to monitor and certify the dam that collapsed.

According to journalist Cristina Serra, author of the book Tragedy in Mariana: The Story of Brazil's Biggest Environmental Disaster (Record publishing house), the Brumadinho case can be associated with other serious accidents with significant environmental consequences. These include the collapse of the Mariana dam, also in Minas Gerais, in November 2015, controlled by Samarco Mineração S.A. (a subsidiary of Vale S.A. and BHP Billiton), and the ground subsidence in Maceió, Alagoas, in February 2018, caused by the exploitation of rock salt mines by the Brazilian company Braskem. In all three cases, no one has been held criminally responsible to date.

Also interviewed on the program Natureza Viva, Cristina Serra recalls that there are three incidents related to mining companies, and that they “operate with great irresponsibility, without taking into account essential aspects of safety.” She adds that the companies “don’t invest as much in operational safety as they should, because, of course, they always want to increase their profit margin.”

The journalist also points out “another aspect of this story” that contributes to these types of disasters: public oversight bodies – “both state and federal agencies” - do not actually fulfill their role.

“They don’t go on-site to see what’s happening. Both the oversight and licensing processes are bureaucratic, relying heavily on paperwork - documents that companies submit and that oversight bodies simply accept as if the information were correct,” adds Serra.

The other side

Contacted by Agência Brasil, Vale said it does not comment on the lawsuit currently in court, but highlighted the reparation actions underway in the region. The company emphasizes that it is “making progress in repairing the impacts of the Brumadinho dam collapse, with 81 percent of the Judicial Agreement for Full Reparation economically executed by December 2025, and with investments that go beyond compensation.” These actions include socio-environmental recovery, ensuring water supply, and initiatives for economic diversification in the region. Vale also states that, in parallel, it is investing in the safety of its dams.

Samarco, the company responsible for the dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, issued a statement reaffirming its solidarity with the affected people, communities, and territories. Following the signing of the New Rio Doce Agreement in 2024, Samarco assumed direct responsibility for carrying out reparation and compensation measures. The company states that it continues to fully comply with the agreement and remains committed to achieving definitive reparation.

According to Samarco, “thousands of people have been compensated, new districts have been built and delivered to communities, and significant environmental recovery actions continue in the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo,” the statement reads.

TÜV SÜD, the German holding company whose Brazilian branch was contracted to assess the dam, says in a statement that the Brumadinho dam collapse “was a great tragedy, and we express our solidarity with the victims and their families.” However, the company adds that it has no legal responsibility for the dam breach.

The company maintains that the issuance of the stability declarations was legitimate, complied with applicable legislation and technical standards, and that the dam was stable at the time the declarations were issued.

 

The Munich District Court in Germany has scheduled three hearings in the lawsuit filed by 1,400 victims of the collapse of Vale’s dam in Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais state. The purpose of the lawsuit is to establish the liability of TÜV SÜD AG, which is headquartered in the city. The hearings are scheduled for May 26 and 28.

On the initiative of residents of the municipalities of Brumadinho and Mário Campos, the lawsuit seeks civil liability from the company as well as compensation estimated at BRL 3.2 billion.

Notícias relacionadas:

• Brumadinho dam collapse: 23 thousand compensation deals inked.

The victims are represented by the law firm Pogust Goodhead, which also defended the rights of victims of the 2015 collapse of Samarco’s Fundão dam in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais, seeking compensation from the shareholder, the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.

TÜV SÜD AG is the company called upon to respond for controlling Tüv Süd Bureau de Projetos e Consultoria LTDA, its subsidiary in Brazil hired to assess whether the structure was compromised and posed any risk.

When contacted by Agência Brasil, TÜV SÜD AG maintained that it “has no legal responsibility for the dam collapse” and that an inspection carried out by authorities in November 2018, three months before the socio-environmental crime, confirmed the soundness of the structure, as attested in a report.

“The issuance of stability statements by TÜV SÜD Bureau was legitimate and in accordance with applicable legislation and technical standards. The dam was stable at the time of the stability statements,” the German holding company argued.

The victims claim that the Córrego do Feijão mine dam was in poor condition, falling well below international standards. A total of 272 people died in the tragedy.

Crime

In the view of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the case should be remembered as a crime, not as an inevitable tragedy or disaster. Movement members claim there was deliberate negligence on the part of the mining company Vale and the German certifier.

In Brazil, only now – seven years after the dam collapse – will a federal criminal court of Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, begin preliminary hearings, on February 23. The first phase of the process will determine whether the defendants will go to trial by jury. The testimony of victims, witnesses, and defendants should continue until May 2027.

As it stands today, 15 individuals are facing criminal charges for the crime. Eleven are former directors, managers, and engineers at Vale, and four are employees of TÜV SÜD.

In both cases, the defendants may be punished for aggravated murder with possible intent – i.e., when the risk of death is assumed.

In the complaint submitted to Munich prosecutors, employees of the German holding company may also be convicted of crimes of negligence leading to flooding and corruption.