MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Another Vale mining dam collapsed: no deaths reported and “no contamination”

Authorities say there’s no risk of contamination from the water, sand and clay that spilled from the dam owned by the Metalmig company

Brazil has suffered another mining dam collapse, though this time there are no reports of dead or missing. The Rondonia state environment secretary says the dam in Oriente Novo gave way after a waterspout damaged its structure on Friday.

Authorities say there’s no risk of contamination from the water, sand and clay that spilled from the dam owned by the Metalmig Company.

A dam owned by mining giant Vale collapsed on Jan. 25, killing at least 217 people and leaving 84 missing in Minas Gerais state. Vale said last week that auditors have determined that another dam in that state could collapse at any time and people in three cities practiced evacuation drills during the last week.

In related news Brazilian authorities have frozen more than US$ 4 billion of assets belonging to Vale over the deadly dam collapse, Vale announced as it reported a 24.6% increase in full-year net profit.

Vale said local judicial and government authorities had frozen more than 16 billion reais (more than US$4 billion) of its assets to cover the potential cost of compensation, wages and other expenses relating to the disaster.

It was too early to estimate the total cost of the dam collapse, Vale said in a statement, noting the “preliminary stage of the various claims and contingencies”.

For 2018, the world’s top iron ore producer said net profit rose 24.6% to US$6.86 billion on a strong fourth-quarter performance. Its full-year operating revenue reached US$ 36.58 billion, up 7.7% from the previous year.