UK court finds mining firm liable for Brazil's worst environmental disaster

英国法院判决采矿公司对巴西最严重的环境灾难负有责任

Newshour

2025-11-15

47 分钟
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A court in Britain has ruled that the mining company BHP is legally responsible for the collapse of a dam in 2015 which caused one of Brazil's worst environmental disasters. The failure of the Mariana dam (in southeastern Brazil) unleashed a wave of toxic waste that killed nineteen people and polluted a major river. It was owned by a joint venture between the Brazilian firm, Vale, and BHP - which was headquartered in Britain at the time. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilian victims are seeking what could amount to billions of dollars in compensation. BHP says it intends to appeal. Also in the programme: controversy in Turkish football; and we hear from a mystery person photographed during the Louvre heist. (Photo: A view shows the BHP Group logo at their headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. CREDIT: REUTERS/Hollie Adams/File Photo)
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  • Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service.

  • We're coming to you live from London.

  • I'm Krupa Bhatti and it's very good to have you with us.

  • It is largely considered to be Brazil's worst environmental disaster in history.

  • On the 5th of November 2015,

  • the Mariana Dam collapsed in the state of Minas Gerais in the southeast of the country.

  • Now what you are hearing there is the sound of men shouting after a man called Paolo that is after the damn burst and began spewing streams of brown sludge.

  • Julia Carnero produced this report for the BBC at the time.

  • A sea of mud and debris after the damn burst Thick,

  • reddish dirt gushed into the rural district of Bento-Hodrigues,

  • outside the old colonial town of Mariana in Minas Gerais.

  • It removed rooftops, dragged trucks and destroyed homes.

  • The deluge settled into a dense surface of mud engulfing part of the district.

  • A sense of the devastation there,

  • tens of millions of cubic metres of toxic waste and mud were unleashed.

  • Local residents had no time to escape.

  • Homes in nearby villages were swallowed up, the river poisoned, and 19 people lost their lives.

  • The dam was owned by Sir Marco,

  • a joint venture between the mining giants Vale and the Australian-owned BHP,

  • and today we've learnt that a British court has found BHP liable for the collapse of the dam,