A Brazilian court on Thursday cleared mining giants BHP and Vale, and their Brazilian joint venture Samarco, of responsibility over a 2015 dam collapse that caused the country’s worst ever environmental disaster.
The dam’s rupture on November 5, 2015 near the town of Mariana unleashed a giant torrent of toxic mud that swamped villages, rivers and rainforest, killing 19 people on its way to the sea.
Scientists say the sludge caused “permanent” pollution on the river Doce and its coastal plain.
Brazil’s government filed a criminal complaint against the mining companies and several of their executives over the spill.
But a court in Belo Horizonte, capital of southeastern Minas Gerais state, where the disaster occurred, ruled that state prosecutors had failed to prove that “individual behavior contributed directly and decisively to the collapse of the dam.
“And, in the context of the criminal trial, the doubt… can only be resolved …