{"id":1118189,"date":"2019-05-28T15:55:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T15:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=989680"},"modified":"2019-05-28T15:55:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T15:55:31","slug":"vale-downplays-risk-of-dam-break-at-gongo-soco-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1118189","title":{"rendered":"Vale downplays risk of dam break at Gongo Soco mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brazil\u2019s mining giant VALE (NYSE: VALE) said Tuesday<\/a> the risk of a new dam break as a consequence of an unstable embankment at its nearby Gongo Soco open pit, in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, had decreased.<\/p>\n

The miner and\u00a0emergency services\u00a0had warned that a section of the now defunct mine<\/a> had an estimated 10% to 15% chance of disintegrating. If that happened, Vale had said, it would rupture the Sul Superior dam, located only 1.5 kilometers (nearly one mile) away, risking the nearby town of Bar\u00e3o de Cocais.<\/p>\n

Vale’s Operations Director, Marcelo Barros, said all preventive measures for any possible scenario have been taken. “All the residents of [the potentially affected area] were relocated, we removed more than 3,000 animals and transferred\u00a0pieces of sacred art to places outside the Self-Rescue Zones (ZAS),” he noted.<\/p>\n

Even if\u00a0 the pit slide doesn’t rupture the Sul Superior dam, the emergency level remains at 3, which is\u00a0the highest classification.<\/q><\/p>\n

Even if\u00a0 the pit slide doesn’t rupture the Sul Superior dam, the emergency level remains at 3, which is\u00a0the highest classification.<\/p>\n

Almost 700 people living around the dam were evacuated in early February<\/a> after monitoring systems detected abnormal movement in the northern slope of the pit.<\/p>\n

The latest alert comes four months after 242 people were killed when a dam burst at Vale\u2019s C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o mine<\/a>, also in the state of Minas Gerais.<\/p>\n

Brazil has since banned the construction of new upstream dams, which are cheaper but less stable than other types of tailings dams, and ordered the decommissioning of existing ones.<\/p>\n

In March, the company was\u00a0hit by a local court injunction\u00a0that forced it to freeze operations at 13 of its tailings dams<\/a> in the South American country. Under pressure from federal and state prosecutors, for failing to do enough to prevent the disaster, Vale named company veteran Eduardo Bartolomeo as chief executive to replace Fabio Schvartsman, who quit after the incident<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brazilian prosecutors began probing in March more than 100 high-risk dams across the country early. They say they doubt the legitimacy of the safety audits carried out at the nation\u2019s mines, especially considering that\u00a0C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o was certified as stable by German consulting group T\u00fcv S\u00fcd only days before the deadly accident.<\/p>\n

Gongo Soco is one of 87 mining dams in Brazil built like the one that failed in January. All but four have been rated by the government as equally vulnerable or worse.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a>\u00a0for complete coverage of the dam burst at Vale’s C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o mine.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In February, Vale evacuated about 700 people as a \u201cpreventive measure\u201d from a tailings dam area of the Gongo Soco mine, near the city of Bar\u00e3o de Cocais. (Image: Google Earth.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The post Vale downplays risk of dam break at Gongo Soco mine<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Risk of a new dam break as a consequence of an unstable embankment at Gongo Soco open pit, in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, are now minimal, said Vale.<\/p>\n

The post Vale downplays risk of dam break at Gongo Soco mine<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1274,1275,404,369,440,2640,703],"tags":[19,294,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1118189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118261,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118189\/revisions\/1118261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1118189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1118189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1118189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}