The ‘Mr Bates of Brazil’ leading thousands in fight for justice after toxic sludge devastated lives

Monica dos Santos is one of 620,000 claimants seeking damages from BHP

Monica dos Santos, Brazil’s very own Mr Bates, is leading hundreds of thousands of people in the largest group claim in legal history.
Her journey to the doors of London’s High Court started some nine years ago when a dam belonging to the world’s largest mining company collapsed, engulfing her home in toxic mud.
Ms Santos, who retrained as lawyer to take on Anglo-Australian company BHP, joint owner of the Fundao tailings dam, which collapsed in November 2015, is helping 620,000 claimants seeking £36 billion damages.
“My life as I knew it ended that day. I lost everything – my house, my dreams, my friends. Our lives have been suspended since. It is a never-ending fight,” said Ms Santos. 
She believes she would be dead if she hadn’t gone to work that day. 
After engulfing her house and the entire village of Bento Rodrigues in south-eastern Brazil, the tailings – the toxic by-product of iron ore mining – entered the River Doce. 
From there, it weaved a deadly path across the country, sometimes in 10m waves, before spilling out into the Atlantic, 650km away. 
It directly killed 19 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and unleashed around 50 cubic metres of poisonous sludge over everything in its wake.
Known as the Mariana dam disaster, it is the worst environmental accident in Brazilian history. It is now nearly a decade since the dam collapsed and it has been a monumental battle to seek justice. 
There are many like Ms Santos. Her friend Priscilla, emerged from the mud having lost her unborn child, with all her clothes ripped from her body. Another friend, Gelvana, experienced her seven-year-old son’s body washing up a week later, 100km from home.
In the disaster, BHP set up the Renova Foundation, a body responsible for compensating those affected, which claims to have spent more than $7.9 billion (£6 million) on emergency assistance.
Ms Santos said: “In two years, they only built two houses in the resettlement of Bento. So, imagine how long it’s going to take them to complete over 200 houses there.
“We have lost many residents both young and old. Sometimes I believe that the companies are waiting for us all to die so they can escape guaranteeing our reparation because it’s taking forever.” 
Tom Goodhead of Pogust Goodhead, representing the claimants, describes Renova Foundation as an “abject failure” engaged in “fantasy advertising” to greenwash BHP’s reputation. 
He points out most people have so far received nothing, saying: “In the immediate aftermath, BHP made insulting offers as low as $200 to people who had their lives destroyed in the disaster. 
“This approach mirrors that of the Post Office scandal in the UK, where victims were offered negligible amounts of compensation after waiting for many years.”
Mr Goodhead first heard about the case in 2017 through his friend, a Brazilian lawyer who was representing a group of fishermen whose livelihoods had been destroyed but were finding it impossible to get justice.
He said: “There is a dynamic of power at play here between the world’s largest mining company and a country where mining is so crucial to the economy. These companies are extraordinarily powerful and have tentacles reaching right into government and that means the victims have a struggle to hold these companies accountable in the Brazilian court.
“I went out to Brazil thinking that there might be a couple of thousand people who may participate in a case and here we are six years later with 620,000. I never dreamt it would become the size that it did.”
Pamela Fernandes is another who has made the long journey over for the trial. She was pregnant with her third child when the dam broke. It was mid-afternoon and she was in college studying. 
At first, she thought it was heavy rain but when she saw the avalanche of mud, her instinct, like everyone else’s, was to get up and run for her life. 
When she regrouped in nearby Mariana with her shell-shocked neighbours, she discovered her resourceful little three-year-old Nikolas, had saved himself by crawling through the open window of a parked car. 
Her daughter Manu was nowhere to be seen. 
“Five days later I was informed that she was dead. She was found in a tangle of branches and trunks,” she said. Manu’s body was so badly broken that Fernandes was not allowed to see it.
In the court’s opening statements, Mrs Justice O’Farrell heard how the dam, owned by Samarco – a joint venture between BHP and Brazilian company Vale – allowed at least 10 times more tailings to be dumped behind it than was originally agreed. 
A document from as far back as 2012 shows that the board was aware of these high levels of tailings but did nothing about it. “BHP approved this arrangement even though it was unsafe,” said Alain Choo Choy, representing the claimants. 
The dam also had serious drainage issues that left it in a “fragile and vulnerable” state unable to cope with the sheer volume it was holding.
Locals in the 600-strong tight-knit community of Bento Rodrigues had long questioned the safety of the dam that loomed high above their village. 
According to Dead River, a podcast about the disaster, Edinaldo Oliveira de Assis, an excavator operator on the dam, had previously confided in his wife that he feared for his life. 
He would make videos of the problem areas and show where the mud was dribbling out. 
Assis was killed when the dam collapsed. His wife has so far received nothing.
In her opening statements on Wednesday, Shaheed Fatima of Blackstone Chambers on behalf of BHP, focused on “the clear distinction between direct and indirect polluter”. 
She argued that a direct polluter has to actually “operate” or “execute” the activity that causes the damage and thus, BHP as a controlling shareholder, directs and guides the company, but cannot ultimately be liable for damage.
On day two of the trial, a study is published in Brazil by the Getulio Vargas Foundation investigating the longer-term impact of the dam collapse. 
It discovered the heavy metals in the mud – iron, silicon and aluminium – that had poisoned the water source, reduced life expectancy on average by two-and-a-half years per person. And, horrifyingly, the number of miscarriages had risen by 400 per cent.
Luciano Magalhães, a biologist who works for one of Brazil’s largest water-treatment companies told Dead River: “It looks like they threw an entire periodic table into the river. It’s no longer useful for anything.” 
Jonathan Knowles, originally from Harrogate, had been living further downstream in Govenador Valadares, on the banks of the River Doce, with his Brazilian partner and son when the dam collapsed. 
He said: “On day one, there were rumours that a tidal wave was on its way. On day two, thick gloopy waves appeared. By day three, it was biblical – you couldn’t see the water, just dead fish for as far as the eye could see.”
He describes how at first they were instructed to try and store as much water as possible but then, when the water became toxic, trucks trundled around trying to make daily deliveries of bottled water to the 280,000 people who had relied on the Doce for their supply.
“When the lorries came, the tyres would kick the dust up into the air and you could see it sparkling from all the metal that was in it. People will be consuming that possibly for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Mr Knowles has since returned with his family to Harrogate.
Meanwhile, Ms Fernandes has never opened a book to study again since that November day in 2015, nor has she got a permanent home – moving constantly with her three children over the past years. 
For the indigenous Krenak community, which has lived on the banks of the river for hundreds of years, the Doce wasn’t just their food and water supply, but also their god. 
Outside the High Court, standing proud in their headdresses, they hold up bottles of murky brown water labelled, “a taste of negligence” and offer a sip to the finest legal minds of Blackstone Chambers as they file past them into court, heads down.
A statement released by BHP said: “The Fundao dam failure was a tragedy, and our deepest sympathies remain with the impacted families and communities. BHP Brazil continues to work closely with Samarco and Vale to support the ongoing remediation and compensation process in Brazil.
“The Renova Foundation, established in 2016 as part of the first agreement with the Brazilian authorities has spent more than US$7.9 billion on emergency financial assistance, compensation and repair and rebuilding of environment and infrastructure to approximately 430,000 individuals, local businesses and indigenous communities.”
The cross-examination of Chris Campbell, vice president of BHP between 2010 and 2011, starts on Monday.