LONDON (AP) — A London judge ruled Friday that global mining giant BHP Group is liable in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster when a dam collapse 10 years ago unleashed tons of toxic waste into a major river, killing 19 people and devastating villages downstream.
High Court Justice Finola O’Farrell said Australia-based BHP was responsible despite not owning the dam at the time, finding its negligence or carelessness led to the collapse.
Anglo-Australian BHP owns 50% of Samarco, the Brazilian company that operates the iron ore mine where the tailings dam ruptured on Nov. 5, 2015. Enough mine waste to fill 13,000 Olympic-size swimming pools poured into the Doce River in southeastern Brazil.
Sludge from the burst dam destroyed the once-bustling village of Bento Rodrigues in Minas Gerais state and badly damaged other towns.
The disaster also killed 14 tons of freshwater fish and damaged 600 kilometers (370 miles) of the Doce River, according to a study by the University of Ulster in the U.K. The river, which the Krenak Indigenous people revere as a deity, has yet to recover.
Victims of the disaster called the ruling a historic victory in seeking justice.
“We had to cross the Atlantic Ocean and go to England to finally see a mining company held to account,” said Mônica dos Santos of the Commission for Those Affected by the Fundão Dam.
Gelvana Rodrigues, whose 7-year-old son, Thiago, was killed in a mudslide, celebrated the step forward and said she would not rest until those responsible are punished.
“The judge’s decision shows what we have been saying for the last 10 years: it was not an accident, and BHP must take responsibility for its actions,” Rodrigues said.
The judge agreed with lawyers representing 600,000 Brazilians in the class-action case who argued that BHP was heavily involved in the Samarco operation and could have prevented the disaster, but instead encouraged raising the dam to allow more production.
“The risk of collapse of the dam was foreseeable,” O’Farrell wrote in the 222-page decision. “It is inconceivable that a decision would have been taken to continue raising the height of the dam in those circumstances and the collapse could have been averted.”
The claimants are seeking 36 billion pounds ($47 billion) in compensation, though the ruling only addressed liability. A second phase of the trial will determine damages.
The case was filed in Britain because one of BHP’s two main legal entities was based in London at the time.
The trial began in October 2024, just days before Brazil’s federal government reached a multibillion-dollar settlement with the mining companies.
Under the agreement, Samarco — which is also half owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale — agreed to pay 132 billion reais ($23 billion) over 20 years. The payments were meant to compensate for human, environmental and infrastructure damage.
BHP had said the U.K. legal action was unnecessary because it duplicated matters covered by legal proceedings in Brazil.
