Pamela Fernandes granted her five-year-old daughter’s wish for a bigger kiss than usual before she left the house. She never thought it would be the last.
Her daughter, Emmanuele Vitoria was one of 19 people killed on 5 November 2015, when the devastating Mariana dam collapse caused a torrent of mud to tear through the quiet town of Bento Rodrigues in the southeast Brazilian mountains.
Nine years later, Ms Fernandes, 30, is one of 620,000 people pursuing justice in the UK High Court, in what is said to be the biggest group action the British court system has ever seen.
Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP is the subject of the £36bn claim, a long-awaited bid for partial justice after indigenous communities and nearby villages saw their lives ravaged by Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disaster.
The dam, which held waste from an iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state, collapsed at 4.20pm, causing a cascade of toxic water and mud to flood a number of villages in the Gualaxo river valley. Its impact spread far and wide, pollutants recorded as far as 668 kilometres (451 miles) away from the dam.
After years desperately seeking justice in Brazil, Ms Fernandes, who now lives in the Bento Rodrigues’ neighbouring city of Mariana, is relieved to see a path to justice open up - despite being 9,000 kilometres (5,600 miles) away from her lost home.
“After the English [court case] came, I finally feel like my life is moving forwards again,” Ms Fernandes told The Independent through a translator, after an event in which a handful of the litigants shared their stories. “I was humiliated after all the pain, after everything that happened, so seeing BHP being held accountable, this is what brings peace to my heart.”
Indigenous communities, including the Krenak people, have also seen their way of life destroyed by the disaster after the damage to the Watu river, a vital source of food, water, irrigation and leisure.
Wakreka Krenak is the female leader of the Krenak people. “Every day BHP commits a crime inside our community,” she told a room filled with victims, lawyers and campaigners in an impassioned speech in parliament, also through a translator.
Speaking afterwards to The Independent, in a defiant but tearful interview, Ms Krenak recalled the days before her people’s livelihoods were destroyed.
“The river warned us two days before the dam broke. The river told us to say goodbye. Two days before the dam broke, we went to the river, we played, we swam, we did lots of activities because we were feeling this warning,” Ms Krenak said.
“When the dam broke and we saw the toxic mud reaching the river, we sat by the river and cried. I remember my grandma was crying, saying, ‘the river is dead’, and I can never forget.”
British 60-year-old Jonathan Knowles had lived in the region with his family for seven years. During the event, he recalled the “biblical” scenes on the third day after the collapse, in which the river was “bank to bank” covered in dead fish of all sizes.
Mr Knowles was scathing of BHP, which the High Court heard on Monday is “cynically and doggedly” trying to avoid responsibility as they deny liability for the dam’s collapse.
“They have no moral fibre, not a single moral fibre between them. The way that they treat people is beyond disgusting,” he told The Independent.
BHP now faces hundreds of thousands of individuals, businesses, municipal governments, indigenous groups and faith-based organisations in the historic High Court case which, if they lose, will cost them billions.
The mining giant argued in the High Court on Monday that the case against them “rests on incorrectly eliding the distinctions between BHP, BHP Brazil and Samarco”.
Shaheed Fatima KC, representing BHP, said in a written submission that the mining giant did not own or operate the dam, adding that BHP had “limited knowledge of the dam and no knowledge that its stability was compromised”.
But Alain Choo Choy KC, for the claimants, told the court: “The claimants respectfully submit that BHP’s liability to compensate them for their losses is, at the end of the day, straightforward and obvious. BHP is a polluter and must therefore pay.”
BHP has “devoted very substantial resources to placing obstacles in the way of the claimants’ English claims”, he said, adding that it is “not BHP facing up to its responsibilities but cynically and doggedly trying to avoid them.”
The trial, heard by Mrs Justice O’Farrell, is not due to conclude until March 2025. A decision in writing will be provided at a later date.
