{"id":39944,"date":"2022-01-13T07:29:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T07:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=39944"},"modified":"2022-01-13T16:52:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T16:52:27","slug":"pau-branco-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/01\/13\/pau-branco-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pau Branco landslide &#8211; video of the overtopping of the dam"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The Pau Branco landslide &#8211; video of the overtopping of the dam<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s7lmiWYRids\">A video has now emerged online<\/a> that shows the overtopping of the dam immediately downstream of the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/01\/11\/pau-branco-1\/\">Pau Branco landslide in Brazil on 8 January 2022<\/a>.\u00a0 This video was apparently collected by CCTV at the site:-<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"EXCLUSIVO: V\u00cdDEO MOSTRA MOMENTO QUE DIQUE DA VALLOUREC TRANSBORDA EM NOVA LIMA\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s7lmiWYRids?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the video it is clear that the rainfall was heavy, and the dam was full with water cascading down the spillway on the far side.\u00a0 As the landslide becomes visible on the left side of the footage a displacement wave races across the lagoon and causes an initial overtopping event.\u00a0 This quickly develops as the volume of the lagoon is filled with landslide debris.<\/p>\n<p>Initially most of the overtopping is water from within the lagoon, and this is reflected by the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/01\/12\/pau-branco-2\/\">videos from the road below the dam<\/a>.\u00a0 Later in the video solid material overtops the structure &#8211; this may be a combination of landslide debris and silt from within the pond.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_39949\" style=\"width: 809px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39949\" class=\" wp-image-39949\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A still from the video of the overtopping of the small dam caused by the Pau Branco landslide. \" width=\"799\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-1024x534.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-768x400.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-1536x801.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/01\/22_01-Pau-Branco-6-2048x1068.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-39949\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A still from the video of the overtopping of the small dam caused by the Pau Branco landslide. <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/01\/11\/pau-branco-1\/\">Image from a video posted to Youtube<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The video demonstrates the power of such an event &#8211; the speed and relentless nature of the overtopping are stark.\u00a0 It is fortunate that the structure was in place &#8211; it has retained a large proportion of the mine waste, probably preventing a much more powerful and destructive flow from reaching the road and from a greater volume of mine waste being unretained now.<\/p>\n<p>And of course it is fortunate that the retaining structure was able to stand up to the flow.\u00a0 If it had collapsed rapidly then the impact would have been much more serious.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile the fallout from the Pau Branco landslide continues.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bnamericas.com\/en\/news\/fears-rise-about-condition-of-brazil-tailings-dams\">Inevitably, further questions are being asked about the stability of the huge numbers of mine waste piles in Brazil<\/a> (this should not be confined to Brazil of course).\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/noticias.r7.com\/minas-gerais\/pilha-de-rejeitos-que-caiu-em-nova-lima-mg-foi-ampliada-ha-um-ano-12012022\">Reports also indicate that a licence was granted in January 2021 for an expansion of the <del>dry stack<\/del> mine waste pile that failed<\/a>.\u00a0 It will be interesting to know how much of this expansion had occurred at the time of the collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, of course, there are many similar slopes associated with this mine waste pile.\u00a0 Urgent work is needed to determine the stability of these slopes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/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>The 8 January 2022 Pau Branco landslide in mine waste &#8211; CCTV footage has now emerged showing the overtopping of the dam <!-- 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":39949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27393],"tags":[102,469,963,299,205,122,230],"class_list":["post-39944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mining","tag-brazil","tag-featured","tag-landslide-video","tag-mine","tag-mining","tag-south-america","tag-tailings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39944","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=39944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}