{"id":16778,"date":"2015-11-10T08:43:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T08:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=16778"},"modified":"2015-11-10T08:43:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T08:43:36","slug":"fundao-dam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/11\/10\/fundao-dam\/","title":{"rendered":"The history of the Fundao Dam near Bento Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>The Fundao Dam<\/h5>\n<p>It is increasingly clear that the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/11\/06\/bento-rodrigues-1\/\">disaster at the Samarco mine<\/a> that d<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/11\/08\/samarco-1\/\">estroyed the town of Bento Rodriguez in Brazil in a mudslide of tailin<\/a>gs last week was caused by the failure of one of the upstream structures, the Fundao Dam.\u00a0 Unfortunately as yet I have struggled to track down a decent image of the site of the dam failure.\u00a0 The best I have managed is this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YB7c_QYyTKc\">YouTube video of the site<\/a>, which was pointed out in <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/11\/06\/bento-rodrigues-1\/#comment-163653\">a comment by Caner Zanbak<\/a>, shot from a helicopter:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YB7c_QYyTKc?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>It is really hard to understand exactly what this imagery shows because the camera never stands back from the site of the former dam.\u00a0 But the images do seem to show near complete destruction of the Fundao Dam itself, and extensive loss of tailings from the pond that it retained.\u00a0 Fortunately the retaining structures to the adjacent ponds appear to be intact.\u00a0 This is approximately the site of the former dam:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16781\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-7-e1447142134954.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16781\" class=\"wp-image-16781 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-7-e1447142134954.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"324\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16781\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The site of the Fundao Dam from Youtube<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Google Earth has a good sequence of images of the dam site over the last decade.\u00a0 This is the most image of the Fundao Dam, dated August 2013.\u00a0 The video above suggests that considerable work had been undertaken in this area since this image was collected:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16785\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-8-e1447142487757.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16785\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16785\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-8-e1447142487757.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16785\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fundao Dam in August 2013 via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Back in August 2005 this area was completely undeveloped:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16789\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-9-e1447142593911.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16789\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16789\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-9-e1447142593911.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16789\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fundao Dam site in August 2005 via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>By May 2008 the development of this site was underway.\u00a0 Although partially obscured by cloud the dam was apparently under construction:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16793\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-10-e1447142849858.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16793\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16793\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-10-e1447142849858.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16793\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fundao Dam in may 2008 via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>By February 2011 the dam was fully formed, although less high than at present, and a large volume of tailings was stored behind it:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16794\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-11-e1447142996396.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16794\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16794\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-11-e1447142996396.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16794\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fundao Dam in February 2011 via Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>None of these images give any hint as to why the Fundao Dam failed so dramatically.\u00a0 There is no obvious sign of instability in the dam itself, nor in the adjacent slopes, as far as I can see.\u00a0 The most recent image does show an increase in the amount of water flowing from beneath the dam, but this is probably not a factor.\u00a0 The dam does not seem to be located on an unstable piece of terrain, although Google Earth is not up to assessing this properly.\u00a0 It is all very mysterious, and we can only hope that the investigation is open and transparent so that lessons can be learnt.<\/p>\n<p>Of interest perhaps this brief report on the website of <a href=\"http:\/\/retaengenharia.com.br\/en\/segmento\/mining\/\">Reta Engenharia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16802\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-12-e1447143843855.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16802\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16802\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/11\/15_11-Bento-12-e1447143843855.jpg\" alt=\"Fundao Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"416\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16802\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reta Engenharia website on works on the Fundao Dam<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>But note that the diagram does not seem to show any works on the Fundao Dam itself, and there is nothing that I have seen that indicates that the failure was linked to this project.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is likely that the Bento Rodriguez disaster was triggered by the collapse of the Fundao Dam.  Google Earth reveals the history of the structure.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":16785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[102,71,469,205,122,230,1022],"class_list":["post-16778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-brazil","tag-dam","tag-featured","tag-mining","tag-south-america","tag-tailings","tag-tailings-dam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}