Deluge of toxic mud left death and chaos in its wake

The Mariana dam disaster killed 19 people, made thousands more homeless and bequeathed a bitter environmental legacy that endures to this day. Ahead of a £36billion UK court case, a gripping podcast explores the human and ecological costs of the tragedy

- By Dominic Bliss

AS THE vast deluge of toxic mud barrelled downhill towards his village, Wesley Izabel clung to his two children and sheltered in his home, with no idea what he should do. Suddenly, an avalanche of liquid debris, released by a failed dam upriver, engulfed the walls of his house, pulling him, his three-year-old son Nicolas and daughter Emanuelle, five, in different directions.

Wesley managed to grab Nicolas with one hand, while desperately flailing with the other in the dark mud in search of Emanuelle.

Tragically, she was swept away.

Within 10 minutes, the entire 600-inhabitant town they lived in - Bento Rodrigues, a few hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil was destroyed.

When the deluge finally subsided, many days later, 19 people had been killed, including little Emanuelle, and thousands more were made homeless. The Fundao dam also held vast amounts of toxic mining waste.

Its collapse, on November 5, 2015, was described by Brazil's then-environment minister as the worst environmental disaster in her country's history. It later became known as the Mariana dam disaster, named after the nearby city of the same name.

It's estimated that 50 million cubic metres of mining waste - from a neighbouring iron ore mine were accidentally released into the Doce River, rapidly flowing over 400 miles downstream and spilling out into the Atlantic Ocean.

On its way, it caused a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, polluting water supplies, destroying housing, property and infrastructure, and sweeping up trees, wildlife and debris in its path. For days the toxic sludge poured into the Atlantic, threatening the Abrolhos Marine National Park, on an archipelago off the coast, and spreading so far into the ocean that Nasa was able to view the damage from space.