What happened? Samarco Mineiracoes, a 50-50 joint venture between Australia's BHP Billiton and Brazil's Vale, operates an iron ore mine in Mariana, in the Brazilian south-eastern state of Minas Gerais where three dams used to hold millions of cubic metres of tailings, or mining waste. One of the dams, its second largest, burst on November 5, unleashing 62 million cubic metres of sludge into the Doce River at about 70km/h. It destroyed the town of Bento Rodrigues, killing at least 13 people (12 are still missing), displaced thousands of others, affected water supplies to an estimated 250,000 people and killed fish stocks along 600 kilometres of river in two states. Last week, the mud...
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