Victims of the Mariana Dam collapse speak out as the London trial begins

“The last words I heard him say were: ‘Do you know that you are the best mother in the world?’”

Gelvana Rodrigues’ son, Thiago, was just 7 years old when toxic mud entered his house and killed him.

He was one of 19 people killed after the Mariana Dam collapse in Minas Gerais, Brazil on November 5, 2015.

It is remembered as Brazil’s worst ever environmental disaster.

The dam is owned by Samarco, a joint venture between mining giants Vale and BHP.

It is used to store waste from iron ore mining. When it explodes, it releases tens of millions of cubic meters of toxic waste and sludge.

The mud swept through communities, destroying the homes of hundreds of people and poisoning the river.

Gelvana was at work when the disaster happened, while her son was at home with his grandmother.

After hearing the news, she ran home and found “everything had been destroyed.”

“I haven’t eaten or slept for three days. I just want to find my son,” she said.

Seven days later, she heard that rescuers had found Thiago’s body.

“That day my life ended, because I lived for him.”

Gelvana is one of 620,000 people taking BHP to court in the UK over the disaster.

A civil trial starting in London on October 21 will determine whether the Anglo-Australian company is responsible.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs successfully argued that the trial should be held in London because BHP’s headquarters “were in the UK at the time of the dam failure”.

If BHP loses the case, a second stage will take place to determine who is entitled to further damages and how much.

A separate trial against Samarco’s second parent company, Brazilian mining company Vale, is underway in the Netherlands with about 70,000 plaintiffs.

Both companies agreed that if either company was liable for damages, they would split the costs.

Marcos Muniz, known as Marquinhos, moved to one of the attacked towns – Bento Rodrigues – in 1969, when he was 6 years old, to the same house where his father was born. Later, as an adult, he built his own house on the land his father bought there.

Marquinhos worked for Samarco for nearly 30 years before retiring. He has cattle, pigs and orange trees that he hopes to take care of when he retires.

“I never imagined this could happen,” he said. “If I had known that in the future this would happen and that the place and community where I grew up would be destroyed, I would definitely have stopped working there.”

Bento Rodrigues now resembles a ghost town. The houses were dilapidated and still covered in thick mud. Marquinhos’ house was swept into the nearby lake and now only its top is visible.

BHP and Vale have set up an organization called the Renova Foundation that is tasked with compensating victims.

It offered them cash compensation or a house in a new city the foundation built to replace this town called Novo Bento.

The Renova Fund said it has disbursed more than $7.7 billion in repairs and compensation to more than 445,000 people, with about 50% of that amount paid directly to those affected.

But the companies say this does not mean they accept liability for the disaster.

Communities have the right to decide where the city is built as well as the design of their new homes.

Marquinhos has been offered a home there but fears that, in this modern city, his lifestyle and community will be lost.

The new city is still under construction. It’s up in the hills, as opposed to down on the lake, and it has a more modern, urban feel.

Darliza das Graças moved there a year ago. She owned a small bar in the “old” Bento Rodrigues and now runs a restaurant.

“Life here is wonderful, so good. But at first things were very difficult, there were very few people living,” she said.

“Now they’re coming, it’s much better.”

So far, more than 100 people have been resettled there, but – nine years on – there are still some who have not moved in because their homes are not ready or because they have chosen not to move.

Darliza is happy here, but she says she preferred her old life because “the community there was more united.” Not everyone in her old community chose to live here.

BHP and Vale deny all claims of liability and argue that the UK’s legal action is “unnecessary as it duplicates issues already covered in the current and ongoing work of Renova Foundation as well as other legal procedures in Brazil.”

All of the companies involved said they remained “committed” to repairing the damage caused. BHP and Vale have made a new offer to the Brazilian government, expected to be signed on Friday, to pay more than 170 billion reais ($45 billion) in compensation.

Samarco added that Renova Foundation has compensated 18 of the 19 families of the dead victims and continues to contact families and lawyers in unresolved cases.

“What happened in 2015 was a tragedy,” said Fernanda Lavarello, head of corporate relations at BHP Brasil. We are very sorry about what happened. Since then, BHP has never given up on the country and is doing everything possible to improve the environment and the lives of those families.”

“Some processes took longer than expected because they were quite complicated, but for those families who quickly chose to build their homes here, their homes were ready and they moved in.”

The UK’s legal case against BHP began in 2018 when people, some companies and local authorities decided to seek what their lawyers described as “fair and full compensation”. enough” for the damages suffered.

The plaintiff’s lawyer – Pogust Goodhead – argued that BHP was liable because Samarco was “the legal entity that produced Iron Ore and BHP had control over the company’s operations and its decisions. This means that BHP knew or should have known when key decisions were made that led to the dam failure.”

If they win, they hope the compensation could reach $44 billion in what is described as one of the world’s largest class environmental lawsuits.

For some, like Marquinhos, it’s about trying to get more compensation than was previously offered, so he can afford to rebuild his life in the place he has chosen.

For some people, no amount of money can make up for what they have lost.

“Nothing can bring life back,” Gelvana said of her son Thiago. “There is no money in the world that can buy life. I just want justice so that no mother sits here in the same seat as me.”