Photographer: Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg
Politics
A Brazilian Town Has Been Covered in Sludge for One Year
Vale is trying to contain the disaster, but 270 lives have been lost and a community destroyed.
Exactly one year ago, a Brazilian dam operated by iron ore miner Vale SA gave way to a tsunami of 9.7 million cubic meters of mining sludge that buried part of a town and killed 270 people.
In the days, weeks and months since Jan. 25, 2019, the world’s largest iron ore miner has made progress in undoing some—but not all—of the damage done when the dam burst. Its chief executive officer stepped down. (He was charged with homicide this week by local prosecutors.) Vale’s stock price has recovered, and output is on its way back. But the community that was unmade when the structure fell will never truly be remade.