Brazil's Deadly Dam Collapse Could Force the Mining Industry to Change by Bloomberg Businessweek

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Brazil's Deadly Dam Collapse Could Force the Mining Industry to Change

bloomberg businessweek

Feb 21, 2019

The list of catastrophic failures will continue to grow so long as cost ranks ahead of safety.

Written by Danielle Bochove, Laura Millan Lombrana, and David Stringer
Photos by Júlia Pontés, recently recognized by Harvard University's Planetary Health Alliance

The mining dam collapse that killed at least 169 in Brazil last month, with 141 still missing, was by no means an isolated incident. There’ve been at least 50 dam failures globally in just the last decade, according to one tally, with 10 considered major.

For years the industry has depended on these dams to contain the sometimes toxic, often dangerous, waste from mining. But the latest failure, which could end up as the deadliest in more than half a century, has the industry struggling to contain the consequences.

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