London Judge Rules BHP Liable for 2015 Brazil Dam Collapse

A London judge ruled Friday that global mining company BHP Group bears liability for Brazil's worst environmental disaster, a 2015 dam collapse that released toxic waste into a major river, killing 19 people and ravaging communities downstream.

High Court Justice Finola O'Farrell determined that the Australia-based BHP was responsible through its negligence, despite not directly owning the Fundão tailings dam. BHP holds a 50 percent stake in Samarco, the Brazilian operator of the iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state where the dam ruptured on November 5, 2015. The breach unleashed approximately 45 million cubic meters of mud and waste, equivalent to the volume of 13,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, which surged into the Doce River.

The sludge obliterated the village of Bento Rodrigues, once home to hundreds, and inflicted severe damage on other nearby towns in Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo states. The disaster contaminated 600 kilometers of the river, killed 14 tons of freshwater fish and reached the Atlantic Ocean more than 400 miles away, according to a study by the University of Ulster in the United Kingdom. The Doce River, revered as a deity by the Krenak Indigenous people,...