{"id":7436,"date":"2019-02-12T11:35:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T11:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/vale-knew-collapsed-dam-was-at-risk-says-report\/"},"modified":"2019-02-12T11:35:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T11:35:48","slug":"vale-knew-collapsed-dam-was-at-risk-says-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/vale-knew-collapsed-dam-was-at-risk-says-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Vale &#8216;knew collapsed dam was at risk&#8217;, says report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"At least 34 have been confirmed dead and some 300 remain missing after a dam burst in Brazil, 26 January 2019\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/4DF3\/production\/_105355991_hi051919685.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">EPA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The sea of muddy sludge swept over roads and destroyed buildings<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The owner of a mining dam that collapsed in Brazil last month, killing 165, knew it was at a heightened risk of failure, Reuters claims in a report.<\/p>\n<p>According to an internal report seen by the news agency, Vale was aware the Minas Gerais dam breached internal safety guidelines in October.<\/p>\n<p>Vale, the world&#8217;s top iron ore miner, said the report was misleading as there was no evidence of imminent risk.<\/p>\n<p>Vale previously said the dam was ruled safe by an independent auditor. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no known report, audit or study with any mention of an imminent risk of collapse at Dam 1 in the C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o mine in Brumadinho,&#8221; it said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To the contrary, the dam had all its certificates of safety and stability attested to by local and foreign specialists.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-47056849\" class=\"story-body__link\">Vale: The pride of Brazil becomes its most hated company<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-latin-america-47173002\" class=\"story-body__link\">Around 700 evacuated over Brazil mine safety<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The incident at Brumadinho dam is Brazil&#8217;s deadliest mining disaster, with many workers still unaccounted for and with some 300 people feared dead.<\/p>\n<p>It was the second major mining disaster in the region since 2015, when a nearby dam co-owned by Vale collapsed.<\/p>\n<p>According to the internal report seen by Reuters, Vale was told the chance of collapse at Brumadinho was one in 5,000 &#8211; twice the maximum level of risk allowed under company guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>The report placed the dam within an &#8220;attention zone&#8221;, saying that &#8220;prevention and mitigation controls&#8221; should be applied.<\/p>\n<p>It also said a failure could cost the company $1.5bn (\u00a31.2bn) and lead to more than 100 deaths. Furthermore it flagged nine other Vale-owned mining dams in Brazil as being at risk.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Monitoring concerns<\/h2>\n<p>Vale acknowledged the existence of the report, but said the causes of the collapse were still being investigated. <\/p>\n<p>It has previously said an audit by German firm T\u00dcV S\u00dcD, carried out in September last year, found the dam met legal requirements. <\/p>\n<p>However, this audit report, also seen by Reuters, raised a number of concerns, particularly about the dam&#8217;s drainage and monitoring systems.<\/p>\n<p>It made 17 recommendations to improve safety, all of which Vale said have been implemented. <\/p>\n<p>It is still not known what caused the collapse at Brumadinho, but experts believe liquefaction was to blame. <\/p>\n<p>Liquefaction is a process whereby a solid material such as sand loses strength and behaves more like a liquid. <\/p>\n<p>Shares in Vale extended their losses in New York on Monday following publication of Reuters&#8217; story. <\/p>\n<p>The company has lost a quarter of its market value &#8211; or nearly $19bn &#8211; since the 25 January disaster.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-47209265\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright EPA Image caption The sea of muddy sludge swept over roads and destroyed buildings The owner of a mining dam that collapsed in Brazil last month, killing 165, knew it was at a heightened risk of failure, Reuters claims in a report. According to an internal report seen by the news agency, Vale &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}