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85 | 100 The dam burst disaster in Brazil

Reading time: 8 minutes - November 05, 2021 - by Thomas Byczkowski - 100 photos - 100 stories

Foto Koch is celebrating 100 years and we are telling YOUR best stories, because without you we wouldn't be here. Today's story is about the dam burst disaster in Brazil.

The story of Dona Delcina

Dona Delcina has been collecting rainwater for self-sufficiency for six years, ever since a dam at the Germano iron ore mine in Minas Gerais burst on November 5, 2015, triggering the "Fukushima of Brazil" - the country's worst environmental disaster. The dam secured a sedimentation basin for sewage sludge: water, soil, ores, solvents, car batteries, tires, industrial waste. When the wall collapsed, more than 50 million cubic meters of this toxic sludge rushed over forests, fields and houses like a tsunami. 19 people died in the floods, one woman suffered an immediate miscarriage. The sludge spread for seven hundred kilometers and poisoned the Rio Doce all the way to the Atlantic. Never before has a mining accident contaminated a larger area and caused more costly damage. The devastated area is as large as Austria and the damage is estimated at 55 billion dollars. To this day, the river and surrounding area are contaminated, the drinking water is poisoned and millions of people are still suffering from the consequences of the disaster.

Five years later, between 2019 and 2020, I spent months traveling along the Rio Doce with my producer, Stella Negraes, to document the extent and consequences of this disaster. Back then, we met Dona Delcina in Tumiritinga, a small town deep in the backwaters of Minas Gerais. We were traveling along the river in our rental car - the pandemic had just hit the big cities.

The 77-year-old welcomed us anyway - with masks and distance - and told us about her fate, which was as heartbreaking as that of all the other fifty or so victims we portrayed on our trip. During the rainy season, she collected water and stored it in plastic containers. The mining company did not recognize the former washerwoman as a victim of the dam burst, so she received no clean drinking water and no other support. Delcina was convinced that the drinking water was poisoned anyway, because the suppliers secretly filled the bottles in the dirty river. She had to turn over every penny and earned some money by raising cockatiels. Nevertheless, the friendliness and openness with which Delcina let us into her life was both an incentive and an obligation for us to draw attention to the fate of these people. She patiently put up with me setting up my camera, flashes and tripod all over her house. And she implored us to make the situation on the river known here in Germany.

Despite the raging pandemic, we made it to the Atlantic, where the mud continues to push its way towards Bahia and Rio de Janeiro to this day. When we left for home, we knew that we wouldn't see these dear people again for a long time - the pandemic is still raging in Brazil today.

Despite the rampant pandemic, we made it to the Atlantic, where the mud continues to push its way towards Bahia and Rio de Janeiro to this day. When we left for home, we knew that we wouldn't see these dear people again for a long time - the pandemic is still raging in Brazil today. Why should we care here in Germany? The company responsible, Samarco Minera??o SA (a joint venture between two of the largest mining companies in the world: Brazil's Vale SA and the Australian-British BHP Group), is selling its iron ore as far away as Germany, for example to Thyssen-Krupp in Essen. The mine has long been open again. There is a high probability that a German car contains iron ore from the Germano mine. And yet hardly anyone knows about the methods used to extract the ore in Brazil, because Samarco is conducting an unprecedented cover-up campaign and is exercising its barely limited power over the reparation funds with dictatorial severity.

For Delcina, the situation worsened after our departure: the scars she had shown us burst open and her skin peeled off extensively, because rainwater was too precious for her to shower, she used tap water from the Rio Doce. She struggled with death for weeks, calling us frequently and telling us about her pain. But the doctors didn't want to reveal what was causing this illness. We found out from a journalist friend who was researching another catastrophe. Fortunately, Delcina is now doing better, "it happens as God wills", she says.

My plans for an exhibition this year were ruined by the pandemic. Fortunately, the aid organization Misereor asked me to use my material from Rio and especially one of my portraits for their nationwide advertising campaign. That was the solution: I can reach many more people with such a campaign than with an exhibition. So I was able to keep my promise to remind people of what happened on the Rio Doce six years ago.

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