The mining company Vale has been sentenced for the first time eight months after the momentous dam disaster in Brazil for compensation payments.
A judge in the state of Minas Gerais ruled Thursday (local time) that Vale has to pay the families of three fatalities a total of 2.6 million euros in compensation. The accident at the end of January killed more than 270 people or has been missing since then.
After breaking the dam in Vale's Córrego do Feijão Mine in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil, a huge mudslide leaked over the area. 13 million cubic meters of sludge with mining wastewater carried many people with it.
Judge Rodrigo Heleno Chaves decreed that the survivors of the three deaths, including a pregnant woman, would receive a total of 11.875 million real.
More lawsuits are ongoing
Appeal may be appealed against the first-instance judgment. Courts have said that Vale is therefore not obliged to pay the compensation immediately.
The court ruling on Thursday was Vale's first conviction for a compensation payment to victims of the breach of the dam, based on a lawsuit filed by individuals. Further lawsuits by relatives against the largest iron producer in the world are pending.
In July, another state court in the state of Minas Gerais ruled that Vale had to pay for all damage caused by the dam break in Brumadinho. A sum was not determined. However, the court allowed three billion dollars (2.72 billion euros) to freeze from the company's balance to ensure payment of compensation.
Vale affirmed after the accident, an inspection of the TÜV Süd had in September 2018 no complaints. Even with a further check in January no deficiencies were determined.
Certain construction prohibited
The dam failure in Brumadinho was one of the worst accidents in the history of Brazil. Only four years earlier, a dam in Mariana, which was operated by a subsidiary of Vale and the Australian-British mining group BHP, was broken. The death toll was significantly lower with 19 deaths than in Brumadinho, but the dam failure in the state of Minas Gerais caused the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history.
Meanwhile, Brazil has banned the construction of dams of a specific design that is cheaper but also more risky. Existing dams of this type of construction must be shut down.
Vale was founded in 1942 in Minas Gerais as Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. Until 1997, the company was state-owned. Today, Vale is the world's largest mine operator for iron ore and one of the largest mining companies in the world. In 2017, the group made a profit of 5.5 billion dollars with a turnover of 34 billion dollars.