Over 90 Brazilians Still Missing 2 Months After Dam Collapse

On Jan. 25, the disruption of Brumadinho dam, in Minas Gerais state, caused a flood of 13 million cubic meters of mine waste that destroyed everything in its wake. A majority of the victims worked in the Corrego do Feijao mine belonging to the Vale Group. The dam burst provoked 211 dead and 95 missing.

RELATED: The Tragic Aftermath of Brazil's Deadly Dam Break

Two months after the rupture of the Vale dam in Brumadinho, more than 90 people are still missing.

"Of much sadness, of much pain and, at that moment, of a revolt that grows every day, because my son was not the victim of an accident, those more than 300 people were not victims of an accident, they were cold blooded assassinated. Whoever signed that report attesting to the conditions of the dam was aware of what he was doing and could, at any moment, kill everyone," said the mother of a victim. 

William Garcia, a prosecutor in Minas Gerais where the January disaster occurred, told G1 newspaper his office had filed subpoenas with Vale last June to review safety certificates regarding Vale's dam.

Vale's lawyers responded they had received positive reviews of the dam by the German auditor firm Tuv Sud they had hired. 

According to Wiliam Garcia, Tuv Sud “was used to make it more difficult for prosecutors to investigate and hide from public view the state of that dam, which was so critical that less than two months later it broke,” he said at an anti-corruption event in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais.

In November 2015, another dam burst in the state of Minas Gerais inundated the small village of Mariana, and killed 19 people. Both of dam collapse are associated with the Brazilian mining giant Vale.

Recently, SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation released a report that studied the environmental impact of Brumadinho dam rupture in Minas Gerais in 2015. The accident killed thousands of fish and left 250,000 people without drinking water. Three years later, experts say the water in the nearby Doce river is still unfit for consumption.

To understand the magnitude of the impact and how we can mitigate it, we need to do lot of research, reported Greenpeace Brazil. 

The collapse of Vale SA's dams caused dramatic consequences for humans and the environment without any concrete legal action executed against the group so far.