Modelling the Brumadinho tailings dam failure, the subsequent  loss of life and how it could have been reduced

Lumbroso, Darren; Davison, Mark; Body, Richard; Petkovšek, Gregor

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 1

Research article

|

07 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 07 Jan 2021

Modelling the Brumadinho tailings dam failure, the subsequent loss of life and how it could have been reduced

Darren Lumbroso, Mark Davison, Richard Body, and Gregor Petkovšek

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021-supplement

Data sets

Brumadinho tailings dam, Brazil model animations of mudflow and risk to people plus GIS files, Version 1 D. Lumbroso https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3872788

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Short summary

A tailings dam is an earth embankment used to store the waste from mines, known as tailings. In 2019, the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil failed, releasing a mudflow which killed ~ 300 people. This paper details the use of an agent-based model to estimate the risk to people downstream of this dam. The agent-based model represents each individual person. The modelling indicated that if a warning had been issued as the dam failed, the number of fatalities could have been reduced.