Federal Police Indicts Executives from Mining Giant Samarco for Mariana Dam Tragedy

01/14/2016 - 10h35

The mining companies Vale and Samarco were indicted by the Federal Police of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in the lawsuit that exposed environmental crimes in the rupture of the Fundão dam, in Mariana, which left 19 dead and created a mud tsunami that reached Espírito Santo state.

The Federal Police also charged Samarco's CEO, Ricardo Vescovi.

Also included were VogBR, the company responsible for Fundão's stability and safety assessments for the last three years, as well as six other individuals.

Among those indicted are the monitoring coordinator of the dams, the manager of Geotecnia, the technician responsible fo the Fundão dam and Samarco's general operations manager, beyond the engineer responsible for the dam stability statement in 2015 from VogBR. The police did not release names.

The indictment was made based on behaviors listed in Article 54 of the Environmental Crimes law, that mentions "causing any type of pollution at levels that harm or could harm human health, or that provoke animal death or significant destruction of flora".

Sections of the law that talk about making areas unsafe for human inhabitance, polluting the water source of a community and making it difficult or preventing the use of public beaches are also cited.

According to the Federal Police, the investigations continue and new indictments could still be made, depending on what is uncovered in the police investigation.

In a statement, Samarco said that it "doesn't agree with the indictment of its functionaries because at present there isn't an expert technical conclusion for the causes of the accident".

Translated by SUGHEY RAMIREZ

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