Mac Margolis, Columnist

Brazil’s Mine Disaster Reveals Its Shaky Foundation

Blame pork-hungry politicians, rent-seeking regulators and corner-cutting capitalists.

February 1, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC

Mac Margolis is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He is the author of “The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.”

A sign of deeper problems. — A sign of deeper problems.
Photographer: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images

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In the aftermath of Brazil’s deadliest mine disaster, a nasty and familiar feud has broken out.

Green groups and community activists blamed avaricious industrialists, free-market fundamentalists and their official enablers for gutting safety protocols that led to last week’s collapse of a tailings dam at Vale SA’s Feijao iron ore mine, in Minas Gerais state, which has claimed at least 110 lives, with more than 230 people still missing.