Brasilia. Brazil signed a 170 billion reais (about $30 billion) compensation deal on Friday with mining companies BHP, Vale and Samarco for the collapse of a dam in 2015, one of the country’s worst environmental disasters.
The collapse in the city of Mariana, in the southeast of the country, caused a gigantic mudslide that killed 19 people and seriously contaminated the Doce River, compromising the waterway until its mouth into the Atlantic Ocean.
The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, attended the signing ceremony of the agreement in Brasilia, in which the government reported that the first payment of 5 billion reais must be made within a period of 30 days.
The agreement provides for the payment of 132 billion reais, of which one hundred billion represent “new resources” that the companies involved in the tragedy must pay within a period of 20 years.
These will allocate the other 32 billion reais to the payment of compensation to those affected and to reparation actions that will be under their responsibility, in addition to the 38 billion that the mining companies say they have disbursed.
The government’s attorney general, Jorge Messias, said that the resources provided for in the agreement will allow local authorities to repair the financial losses of families affected by the tragedy and pay for environmental recovery actions in the affected areas.
Annual payments will be scheduled until 2043, with values ranging between 7 billion reais in 2026 and 4.41 billion reais in the last tranche.
“These resources will allow us to do justice in reparation to the families directly affected and their impact will be felt in several areas, not only in the recovery of the environment, but in the resumption of economic activities, health and infrastructure,” he said. Messias.
BHP said in a statement that it expected flows under the deal to be in line with its provision for Samarco for the full year 2024 of $6.5 billion and that no update to the existing provision was required at this time.
Friday’s agreement could end more than a hundred lawsuits against mining companies in the country and possibly limit legal action abroad, three sources close to the matter said this week.
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