TIMELINE
MAJOR MININ TAILINGS INC Current mining industry standards do not go far enough to adequately protect communities and ecosystems from the consequences of tailings failures, according to a new Earthworks report. Here is a timeline of recent major incidents.
Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley gold-copper mine
Samarco iron mine in Mariana, Brazil
Córrego do Feijão mine
On August 4, 2014, the tailings dam of Imperial Metals Corp’s Mount Polley copper and gold mine near Likely, British Columbia, Canada, failed, releasing 7.3mn cu/m of tailings, 10.6mn cu/m of water, and 6.5mn cu/m of interstitial water into the environment.
On 5 November 2015, a huge tailings dam operated by Brazilian mining company Samarco collapsed, causing a tidal wave of 32m-40m cu/m of mining waste to wash across valleys, villages and farmland, covering houses in the town of Bento Rodrigues.
A dam at the Córrego do Feijão mine – owned by Vale in Brumadinho, Brazil – collapsed, releasing about 9.7mn cu/m of tailings. The mine waste travelled 8km over land, killed over 272 people, destroyed houses and buildings, and eventually flowed into the Paraopeba River.
14
July 2022
