The Brazilian disaster in which two mine waste dams collapsed and caused a massive mudslide that left 17 people dead has at least led to improved systems of imposing controls on mining companies, a government official says.
"We're launching a new system of inspecting (mining companies) to prevent any more tragedies like that," Brazil's presidential press secretary Edinho Silva told foreign correspondents during an interview in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
According to the presidential spokesman, the tragedy taught municipal and regional organisations some important lessons about supervising such companies and boosted the government's ability to keep an eye on their industrial undertakings.
The spokesman announced the measures for tightening controls a day after a Working Group sent by the United Nations to Brazil warned about the possibility of more accidents striking in the future like the one at Mariana, considered by the government as the greatest environmental tragedy in the nation's history.
According to the UN Working Group, which specialises in the relation between companies and human rights, in the state of Minas Gerais alone, where the tragedy occurred, there are some 40 dams of mineral waste described as "insecure," two of which are "at risk" of breaking open.
Members of the group urged authorities to take "immediate action to strengthen security measures" and to establish a better balance between companies' economic interests and inhabitants' rights.
The Mariana disaster occurred when dams holding back water and mine waste at an iron-ore complex operated by the Brazilian company Samarco - a joint venture of Vale and BHP - burst open and poured out nearly 62 million cubic meters of mine residue, which buried villages and left a trail of toxic mud that covered thousands of square kilometres.
According to Silva, the mining company was responsible for what happened at Mariana and has consequently been prosecuted and fined for the damages it caused.
The company, he said, "has the obligation to provide reparations for all the human, environmental, urban and economic damages it inflicted."
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