Ecological disaster in Brazil: a “36 billion” trial opens in London against BHP

A proceedings to determine liability Australian mining giant BHP's claim over the devastating 2015 rupture of a toxic tailings dam in Brazil opened in London on Monday, rekindling the hopes of hundreds of thousands of victims who are seeking £36 billion in compensation.

“Here, justice will be done and they will be punished for their crime. I don't think that will be the case in Brazil,” Ana Paula Alexandre, 49, told AFP on Monday, just before the trial opened at the High Court in London.

Her husband, Edinaldo Oliveira de Assis, worked on the dam and was killed in the disaster. She has high expectations for the trial in the United Kingdom, which began on Monday around 10:30 a.m., because she says she “doesn't feel like she's being heard in Brazil.”

“I haven't accepted any compensation” financially in Brazil, she adds. “No amount of money could replace what I lost. But what they offered me was far from enough.”

A gigantic mudslide of toxic waste spread 650 kilometers along the Rio Doce River, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, after the rupture on November 5, 2015 of this mining waste dam near the city of Mariana, in the state of Minas Gerais (southeast).

The ecological disaster has killed 19 people, left more than 600 people homeless, killed thousands of animals and devastated protected areas of rainforest.

Aerial view of the village of Bento Rodrigues, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, engulfed by mud on November 6, 2015, the day after a mining waste dam burst © AFP – Christophe SIMON

The building held back the tailings from an iron ore mine belonging to Samarco, a Brazilian company jointly owned by Brazil's Vale and Australia's BHP.

– 620,000 plaintiffs –

After several twists and turns before the British courts, the huge civil trial that must determine BHP's potential liability has opened straight away on the technical question of the group's structure.

BHP had at the time made two sieges, one of which was in London, which explains this trial in the British capital – but it has now refocused on Australia.

The trial is due to end in early March. The amount of damages claimed promises to be enormous: it is estimated “at 36 billion pounds” (43 billion euros) by the plaintiffs' lawyers, in line with their number, more than 620,000, including 46 Brazilian municipalities, companies and several indigenous peoples.

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On Monday morning, eight victims had made the trip, some of whom were in traditional dress waving maracas in front of the court and calling out to passers-by with megaphones, demanding “justice for Mariana”.

“In Brazil, mining companies are very powerful and have great political influence. I hope that justice will be done here. In Brazil, it's hopeless”, says Gelvana Rodrigues, 37, whose 7-year-old son was taken away and his body found 100 kilometres away.

Aerial view of the damage in the village of Bento Rodrigues, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, on November 6, 2015, the day after a mining waste dam burst © AFP – Christophe SIMON

BHP, which assures that the river water has since returned to its quality, says it is “fully aware of the impacts” of the disaster and “unwavering” in its desire for compensation, but considers this British trial “useless”, considering the case “already covered” by the Brazilian procedures.

– Criminal proceedings –

The group assures that more than 430,000 people have already received compensation via the Renova foundation, which manages compensation and rehabilitation in Brazil, including more than 200,000 plaintiffs in the London trial.

Criminal proceedings are also underway in Brazil, as well as other civil proceedings in the Netherlands and Australia.

But “Nearly nine years have passed and no one has been held responsible,” Tom Goodhead, managing director of Pogust Goodhead, the London-based firm representing the plaintiffs, told AFP. To date, “no one has been to prison, there has been no criminal conviction.”

BHP and Vale on Friday revised upwards a global compensation proposal to the Brazilian courts, to 170 billion reais (27.6 billion euros), in the hope of putting an end to the majority of procedures in this country. This amount is still under negotiation.

Aerial view of the rubble of a house destroyed in 2015 by the rupture of a mining waste dam in Bento Rodrigues, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, on October 14, 2024 © AFP – DOUGLAS MAGNO

But “many of the victims I represent simply do not no confidence in companies,” continues the lawyer, who estimates that the majority of people compensated to date in Brazil have received “only a few hundred pounds.”

The decision of the British justice system is not expected before the second quarter of next year, according to BHP. If its liability were recognized, another trial would be organized, probably at the end of 2026, to assess the amount of damages for each plaintiff.

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