Brumadinho dam collapse: 267th victim identified
The 267th victim of the Córrego do Feijão dam collapse, in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais state, was identified through DNA testing on Monday (Dec. 20) by the Civil Police. The institution confirmed the identity of Cristiane Antunes Campos, who was 35 years old at the time of the incident, on January 25, 2019. She was a mine supervisor.
On his social media, Governor Romeu Zema reinforced the commitment of the state government to ease the suffering caused by the tragedy. “We will not rest until we find all the missing people, assuaging some of the pain of the families,” said Zema.
The rupture of the dam controlled by mining giant Vale in Brumadinho took the lives of 272 people, two of whom pregnant. The babies are included in the death toll. Three victims are yet to be located.
This month, the Fire Department has surpassed 1,400 days in operations since the tragedy. So far, 5,735 military firefighters have been employed in the efforts.
Search
Today, the Fire Department is in its eighth search strategy, utilizing sifting machines adapted to the needs of Operation Brumadinho. The equipment has led to an increase in the volume of soil processed—up to approximately 200 tons per hour on each machine.
In addition to the fatalities, the breach of the Vale dam in Brumadinho caused a series of social, environmental, and economic impacts in the Paraopeba river basin, as well as the entire state of Minas Gerais. The collapse is seen as one of the biggest environmental disasters in mining in Brazil after the rupture of Samarco’s Fundão dam, in Mariana, in the same state, on November 5, 2015.
The incident in Mariana killed 19 people, released into the environment some 45 million cubic meters of tailings—mainly iron oxide and silica—burying the subdistrict of Bento Rodrigues under earth and leaving a trail of destruction stretching all the way to the coast of the neighboring state of Espírito Santo.
