Mariana dam disaster: Victims of Brazil's worst environmental disaster to get day in UK courts
Source: The Guardian
Victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to get day in UK courts
Court of appeal judgment allows £5bn lawsuit against mining giant BHP by more than 200,000 victims of 2015 Mariana dam disaster
Phoebe Weston
@phoeb0
Fri 8 Jul 2022 09.59 EDT
Last modified on Fri 8 Jul 2022 11.03 EDT
More than 200,000 victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster will have their case heard in a UK court, making it the largest group claim in English legal history.
The lawsuit is against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP – one of the biggest companies in the world – for their involvement in the collapse of the Mariana dam in 2015, which released toxic mining waste down 400 miles (640km) of waterways along the Doce River. Claimants are seeking at least £5bn ($6bn) in compensation.
The court of appeal released a 107-page judgment on Friday that BHP, which had its headquarters in England at the time of the dam’s collapse, would have to account for its role in the disaster. This follows an earlier ruling that said English courts would not hear the case.
The judgment said compensation being paid in Brazil did not seem adequate. It stated: “The vast majority of claimants who have recovered damages have only received very modest sums in respect of moral damages for interruption to their water supply … The claimants should be permitted now to proceed with the claims in the action.”
When the Fundão tailings dam in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais burst, it released 40m cubic metres of toxic mining waste, killing 19 people, ...
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/08/uk-court-of-appeal-case-victims-brazil-mariana-dam-collapse-aoe