Brazil reaches a $23 billion settlement with mining firms over a 2015 environmental disaster

Associated Press

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed an agreement worth tens of billions of dollars with the mining companies responsible for a 2015 dam collapse that was one of the country’s worst-ever environmental disasters. Under the agreement, Samarco — a joint venture of Brazilian mining giant Vale and Anglo-Australian firm BHP — will pay $23 billion over 20 years to compensate for human, environmental and infrastructure damage caused by the release of an immense amount of toxic mining waste into a major river in southeastern Minas Gerais state. Entire villages were ravaged and 19 people were killed.