By Richard Mann, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Relatives of a family who died while staying at Pousada Nova Estância, buried at the break of the Vale Dam in Brumadinho (Minas Gerais), in January of this year, filed a lawsuit against the mining company.
They are requesting compensation of R$10 million per each deceased relative and the company to issue a formal apology to the victims. The company said it has not yet been sued.
The lawsuit, claiming a total of R$40 million, was filed by family members
of siblings Camila and Luiz Taliberti Ribeiro da Silva as well as Fernanda Damian de Almeida, Luiz’s wife, five months pregnant.
The baby, whose name would have been Lorenzo, is also included in the suit. The family was accompanied by the father and stepmother of the siblings. The tragedy amounts to 231 dead and 41 missing, according to the latest Civil Defense report.
“Our goal is to fight for a change in the shameful compensation parameters practiced
in Brazil.” Vale registered a profit of over R$25 billion last year and is willing to pay R$300 to R$500 thousand per life.
Vale itself has made a study on the value of human life and this amounted to US$2.6 million, which is just over R$10 million,” says lawyer Roberto Delmanto Junior.
In addition to the compensation, the lawsuit demands that Vale displays a photo of
the victims at the entrance of all the company’s units in Brazil and abroad with
the inscription: “Life is worth more than profit. Camila, Fernanda, Lorenzo and
Luiz, we are sorry to have taken your lives.”
Vale informed that it was not summoned to the terms of said lawsuit. It has signed a Term of Commitment with the Public Defender on April 8th so that those affected by the dam rupture could execute individual or collective agreements to seek compensation for moral and material damages.
The mining company said that as of April 12th, 272 families of victims in Brumadinho
received compensations from the company amounting to R$100,000.
Emergency payments were made to 12,400 residents of Brumadinho, Mário Campos and São Joaquim de Bicas.
Vale did not report the amount of compensation for a fatal victim and said that
the US$2.6 million quoted in the suit “is drawn from a document without legal
effect, based on a hypothetical scenario and decoupled from concrete situations.”