Brazil Town Still Feels Trauma Of Mine Dam Collapse Five Years On

Brumadinho, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2024) Nathalia de Oliveira, an intern at Brazilian mining giant Vale in the town of Brumadinho, was talking on the phone with her husband when she noticed a rush of birds overhead and felt the ground shake beneath her.

When the 25-year-old mother of two turned, she saw a tsunami of mud rushing at her.

Oliveira was one of at least 270 people killed when a dam holding more than 11 million cubic meters (nearly three billion gallons) of mining waste collapsed on January 25, 2019, unleashing a brown sea of sludge.

Five years later, emergency workers are still searching for Oliveira and two others whose remains have never been found.

Using heavy machinery, they dig up piles of hardened muck from around the now-defunct mine, then meticulously sift through it for signs of the missing and presumed dead.

"It's agonizing," said Oliveira's cousin, Tania de Oliveira, 51.

"Day after day, year after year, and they still haven't found her," she told AFP, her voice breaking.

"We're hoping to give her a proper burial, so she can rest. So we can rest."