A review of accidents in mining tailings dams in South America and the Brazilian scenario

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the accidents of mining tailings dams in South America in the 20th and 21st centuries and to evaluate the current scenario of Brazilian dams. Through a literature search, it can be seen that there are currently 769 tailings dams registered in Brazil, of which 425 are included in the National Dam Safety Policy (PNSB) and 344 are not inserted. The most used construction method is the execution in a single step, without elevations, representing 48% of the dams inserted in the PNSB and 60.2% of the dams not inserted in the PNSB. From the analysis of accidents in South America, it was observed that the country with the highest frequency of accidents was Brazil and most cases occurred in the decade of 2010. In addition, 72% of the dams that suffered accidents were built using the upstream raising method, which is in line with what is established in the technical literature, about the greater risk of instability in dams built using this method.