2. This 5-minute video shows the first horrifying minute of the 1-25-2019 Brazilian earthen dam collapse.
3. A 6-minute video of the 11-15-2015 Samarco mine disaster which includes a very informative computer simulation of the disaster.
4. The first 6 minutes of this 25-minute video by Al Jazeera about the 2015 Samarco mine disaster shows the aftermath of the event 8 months later. The disaster displaced 6,000 residents of downstream villages.
5. A 5-minute-long video of what happens when earthen dams liquify and burst.
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Futilely digging and searching for the missing bodies of mine employees and others buried in the sludge after the earthen tailings dam dissolved and destroyed everything downstream. This shows what was once a relatively narrow river.
Fish cannot survive such catastrophes, especially if highly toxic mine waste is involved.
More casualties of the breach.
More dead fish – died of asphyxiation. Any fish that managed to survive will be inedible due to ingested poison.
Farm animals didn’t fare well either. This animal survived but is still doomed.
Exhausted rescue workers.
Rescue workers futilely searching for bodies buried in the soon-to-harden sludge. Note the worker to the left unable to escape from his waist-deep predicament.
An overview of the massive partially emptied-out tailings lagoon (upper left). Note the slightly smaller, still-intact, water/sludge-filled tailings lagoon (lower left). The downstream devastation is represented in of the photo
What’s left of the upper section of the massive tailings lagoon after it liquified and collapsed
Toxic sludge overflowing a highway farther downstream. Note the damaged farm field (lower right)
What’s left of the Vale mining company’s administrative buildings, its processing plant and assorted missing company structures, including the cafeteria and the barracks where hundreds of miners were once housed
Destroyed downstream home
A sludge-demolished river-town home lies in ruins after the dam failure
Doomed vehicle soon to be entrapped when the toxic sludge dries into a brick-like consistency
The kitchen of a river town home. The water is poisonous.
Downstream from the tailings dam. Note the tributary to the right that flows into the main river was heavily contaminated when the flow reversed.
The open pit mine at Brumadinho, Brazil as it appeared in 2008. The waste generated at this mine was stored in nearby tailings lagoons, two of which burst on Jan 25, 2019 after 4 years of dormancy.
The mine waste-contaminated Atlantic Ocean (poisoned by mercur, arsenic, etc) at the mouth of Brazil’s Rio Doce, once a healthy fishery, as it entered the Atlantic Ocean days after the breach. The river and the ocean area both remain polluted after 3 years. (This is what could happen to the St Louis River and Lake Superior if the proposed PolyMet tailings lagoon collapsed for any reason (including heavy rain deluge, over-topping, liquification, earthquake or quiver, etc.)
Before and after satellite photos of the Mount Polley copper mine area 2014. Note that in the lower photo the tailings lagoon is empty, the 6 foot wide Hazeltine Creek is visible from space, the freshly-poisoned Polley Lake is no longer dark blue and there is floating debris in Quesnel Lake that is visible from space!
Aerial view of the 100 foot-tall earthen dam-wall of the Mount Polley gold and copper mine tailings lagoon after it dissolved in 2014 and spewed highly toxic sludge into Lake Quesnel, a world-famous salmon and trout fishery. The narrow, tree-lined Hazeltine Creek that emptied into the lake was 6 feet wide at its widest prior to the catastrophe (which was the worst environmental disaster in the history of British Columbia) Thousands of downstream trees were up-rooted and wound up in the lake, which empties into the Fraser River and ultimately into the Pacific Ocean. PolyMet’s tailings dam is projected to reach 250 feet in height.
A photo taken 18 years after a 1974 tailings dam ruptured in Australia. Any humans or animals that are buried in such disasters can never be expected to be recovered in the dried, brick-like residue.
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