{"id":30694,"date":"2019-04-13T07:34:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T07:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=30694"},"modified":"2019-04-13T07:48:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T07:48:09","slug":"hindalco-tailings-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2019\/04\/13\/hindalco-tailings-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindalco, Muri: another tailings failure, this time in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Hindalco, Muri: another tailings failure, this time in India<\/h4>\n<p>On 9th April 2019 yet another significant <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?s=tailings&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;mswhere=blog\">tailings failure<\/a> occurred, this time at the Hindalco works at Muri in Jharkhand, India.\u00a0 The location is 23.364, 85.871.<\/p>\n<p>There are some limited reports of this failure event in the media.\u00a0 For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailypioneer.com\/2019\/state-editions\/mud-pond-wall-collapses-at-hindalco-site-in-muri.html\">the Daily Pioneer has a reasonably detailed report<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;On Tuesday afternoon, boundary wall of the caustic pond created by Hindalco Ltd to dispose of red mud recovered in the process of extracting aluminum collapsed thus leading to a landslide like situation in Muri near the railway tracks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As an impact of the boundary breach, a few dumpers, earth movers and tractors which were parked in the area were buried in the mudslide.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There are very few images of this event in the media.\u00a0 The best idea of what happened can be gained from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8K63D70b4CU\">Youtube video posted by R M Kumar<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8K63D70b4CU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This includes the following still:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30699\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30699\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30699\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2019\/04\/19_04-Hindalco-1-e1555139151596.jpg\" alt=\"Hindalco\" width=\"640\" height=\"322\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30699\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Hindalco tailings failure at Muri in India. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8K63D70b4CU\">Still from a Youtube video by R M Kumar<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhaskar.com\/jharkhand\/ranchi\/news\/caustic-pond-wall-of-hindalco-collapsed-in-muri-01517983.html\">Bhaskar.com<\/a> has this image:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30700\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30700\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30700\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2019\/04\/19_04-Hindalco-2-e1555139346175.jpg\" alt=\"Hindalco\" width=\"640\" height=\"441\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30700\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The aftermath of the Hindalco tailings failure at Muri in India. Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhaskar.com\/jharkhand\/ranchi\/news\/caustic-pond-wall-of-hindalco-collapsed-in-muri-01517983.html\">Bhaskar.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Both images appear to show significant failures through gabian walls.\u00a0 To me, to support a tailings pile on this scale with gabian structures is something of a surprise.\u00a0 An inquiry has been ordered; it will be interesting to see what it shows.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.planet.com\">Planet Labs<\/a> have captured the aftermath of the tailings failure via their Planetscope satellites.\u00a0 This is an image of the area before the failure:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30701\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30701\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30701\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2019\/04\/19_04-Hindalco-3-e1555139813654.jpg\" alt=\"Hindalco\" width=\"640\" height=\"581\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30701\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The site of the Hindalco tailings failure at Muri in India. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planet.com\">Planet Labs<\/a> Planetscope image collected 6th April 2019, used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst this is the aftermath:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30705\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30705\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30705\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2019\/04\/19_04-Hindalco-4-e1555140037479.jpg\" alt=\"Hindalco\" width=\"640\" height=\"676\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30705\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The aftermath of the Hindalco tailings failure at Muri in India. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planet.com\">Planet Labs<\/a> Planetscope image collected 10th April 2019, used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The images suggest that this is a significant failure. Astonishingly, it is not clear as to whether there has been loss of life.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraphindia.com\/states\/jharkhand\/hindalco-shuts-muri-plant-for-now\/cid\/1688529\">Some reports<\/a> suggest up to 20 people may have been killed, but most reports suggest a rather lower human impact. Meanwhile, operations at the plant have been suspended.<\/p>\n<h4>Reference and acknowledgement<\/h4>\n<p>Planet Team (2019). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\">https:\/\/www.planet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a friend in India who highlighted this event to me.<\/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>On 9th April 2019 yet another significant tailings failure occurred, this time at the Hindalco works at Muri in Jharkhand, India<!-- 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":30700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6298],"tags":[469,5,1205,72,230],"class_list":["post-30694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tailings","tag-featured","tag-india","tag-planet-labs","tag-south-asia","tag-tailings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30694","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=30694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}