The “imminent” collapse of a salt mine in Maceió, northeastern Brazil, raises the risk of a massive “urban tragedy,” according to authorities, and the surrounding population has already been evacuated.
The mayor of the state capital of Alagoas, Joao Henrique Caldas, spoke on CNN on Friday of an “imminent” danger and the “worst ongoing urban tragedy in the world.”
According to civil protection officials, although preventive measures protected residents, they could not prevent the environmental disaster.
Thousands of families were displaced again on Wednesday, a relocation process that began in 2019 when the risks in the area were identified.
The threatened districts, in which around 55,000 people lived in more than 14,000 residential buildings, are empty.
Most of the mine is below sea level and its collapse could have significant environmental impacts.
To explain the phenomenon, civil protection took the image of a sink whose drain is suddenly removed: in fact, a large amount of salt suddenly flows into the water and disrupts the marine ecosystem.
Land movements around the mine accelerated its subsidence. According to civil protection information, the level has fallen by 11.4 centimeters in the last 24 hours.
And since November 21, the area has fallen by 1.43 meters, the same source says.
The salt mine in question, which produces rock salt (used to produce sodium hydroxide and PVC), is one of 35 that the Braskem company operates in Maceio. The company’s majority shareholder is Novonor, formerly Odebrecht.
Braskem assured on its website that it was taking “all possible measures to minimize the impact” of a possible collapse and predicted two scenarios: a “gradual” or a “sudden” subsidence.