Wreckage left by Brazilian dam collapse

Brazil’s government said Friday it will sue mining giants BHP Billiton and Vale for $5.2 billion, (the same amount Nigeria has fined MTN across the Atlantic)  in clean-up costs and damages after the deadly collapse of a waste water dam at an iron-ore mine.

“There was a huge impact from an environmental point of view,” Teixeira said at a press conference in the capital Brasilia.

“It is not a natural disaster, it is a disaster prompted by economic activity, but of a magnitude equivalent to those disasters created by forces of nature.”

The suit will be filed on Monday, Attorney General Luis Inacio Adams said.

At least 13 people died and some 11 remain missing from the flood of mud and waste water triggered by the breaking dam at the Samarco iron ore mine near Mariana in southeastern Brazil on November 5.

The deluge swept down the River Doce to the Atlantic, sparking claims of major contamination, although the mining companies insist there is no serious pollution.

The fund being demanded by the government would dwarf initial estimates by Deutsche Bank that a clean-up could cost about $1 billion.

Adams said that the companies would be asked to pay the amount out gradually, as a percentage of their profits.

“The measure should guarantee long-term financing for actions to revitalize the (river) basin,” Adams’ office said in a statement.

Adams said he hoped the powerful corporations — BHP Billiton is the world’s biggest miner and Vale is the world’s biggest iron ore specialist — would cooperate with the government. Both have said they want to meet their obligations.

“The scale of the damage is very big but the companies have announced measures that show they are interested in repairing their image,” Adams said.

Teixeira described the environmental impact as devastating and difficult to repair.

“What was lost there is lost. The biological chain that was broken will not be put back together in any way as it was before. We have to create conditions so that nature establishes new ecological conditions,” she said.

Earlier Friday in Rio de Janeiro, Vale announced a compensation fund, but did not give figures. Executives also sounded a defiant note, rejecting allegations that the River Doce has been badly polluted.

Vania Somaville, director of human resources, health and safety at Vale, told a press conference that lead, arsenic, nickel and chrome had been detected at some points along the river.

However, Somaville argued that the potentially dangerous contaminants were not carried there by the waste water from the mine.