I'm a Goner

...somebody catch my breath.

[jassdoe-blog]

Afloat

I feel disconnected. Apart from all I know. I’m floating. I can see the people and  things I love, but they are never at arms reach.  I.. I don’t feel empty. I’m full, full of a nothingness that pushes all the rest from me, there is no room for anything else. 

[theperksofbeingabookseller]

It is both relaxing and invigorating to occasionally set aside the worries of life, seek the company of a friendly book…from the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way.

Gordon B. Hinckley (via theperksofbeingabookseller)

[jassdoe-blog]

How can I get out of this labyrinth of suffering?

[theperksofbeingabookseller]

Books may well be the only true magic.

Alice Hoffman (via theperksofbeingabookseller)

[theendleess]

[foreverlostinliterature]

[jassdoe-blog]

It occurred to him, long after it should have, that he wasn't the only person here who had problems and felt like an outsider. Alice wasn't just the competition, someone whose only purpose in life was to succeed and by doing so subtract from his happiness. She was a person with her own hopes and feelings and history and nightmares. In her own way she was as lost as he was.

Lev Grossman, The Magicians.

[rairun]

Brazil dam burst aftermath photos: 19 still missing after wave of red mud erased a village

A destructive wave of viscous red mud has all but erased the village of Bento Rodrigues.

This happened a little over a week ago, and the only reason why I haven’t posted anything about it is that there are absolutely no good English-language articles about it. So here are some pictures. The whole thing is incredibly sad.

This happened in my state. I visited that general area when I went to Brazil earlier this year. Both the environmental damage and the human toll appear to be much larger than is being reported by the mainstream media. The company has a tight control over the area, and the (mostly right wing) media is not interested in digging deeper. Politicians have received large campaign donations from the mining industry and are unlikely to act out. The local community was destroyed, and BHP Billiton/Vale are using their influence to settle with each victim individually to avoid collective action. The village will cease to exist. The reports that say the mud will be washed away, causing damage to all sorts of fragile ecosystems until it reaches the sea (over 500km away), are only partially true - some of the mud will harden, covering the riverbed and causing permanent damage.

The guardian reports that governor Pimentel “joined critics calling for a rethink of how regulation of the mining industry [sic]”. He is just paying lip service to the idea - he’s received large sums from Vale and is pushing for less regulation for mining and environmental issues in general.

[shamelesslyunladylike]

This situation is being tragically underreported everywhere, and this doesn’t really cover the sheer proportion of this as an environmental disaster. What happened in Brazil is comparable to the Fukushima tsunami or the BP oil spill in environmental damage.

The Rio Doce, one of the most important waterbeds in Brazil, is dead. Even with the mud being flushed out, the river is pretty much impossible to recover. This is not just mud we’re talking about, it’s mining rejects, industrial sludge contaminated with heavy metals that’s the subproduct of the iron mining in the region. This sludge will destroy everything on it’s path and finally end in the South Atlantic, and it’s expected to spread up to 300 kilometers in every direction once it hits the ocean water. This will impact the whole South Atlantic food chain. On it’s way down, the sludge will cause the extinction of a large number of plant and animal species that are endemic to the Rio Doce area.

As of this moment, search for bodies and survivors on the cities afected by the dam breach was stopped because the São Germano dam is cracked and at risk. The area is beind evacuated. If this dam cracks, the mudslide can reach speeds of up to 30 mph. There are already reports of people who had to leave their houses in a rush and try to outrun the mudslide. You can’t outrun a 30 mph one. Combine this with the fact that the rain season is starting in Brazil right now, and the water volume of the river will increase, speeding out the flush even more.

In the meanwhile, cities who are in the path of the sludge but have not been affected yet have their water supply cut off, since the Rio Doce is contaminated. An estimated 800 thousand people in the area have no reliable water supply right now. The company responsible for the disaster, Vale, has sent a train with a water load, but this load was contaminated with kerosene due to improper cleaning of the tanks, which were previously used to transport fuel. This water cannot be used, and the population doesn’t know when the next load is coming. 19 towns have been affected up to now.

It should also be noted that a lot of the towns drowned by the mudslide were historical towns, not only important sites for tourism but also having great archeological value. This is all gone now.

In short, thousands of people have lost everything they ever had, a major river is now dead and the South Atlantic ecossystem is irreparably compromised. This is a huge deal, and I can find very few links in English about this issue. It’s being mostly swept under the rug. I have family living in Minas Gerais and we’re just waiting to see what’s gonna happen to them, and to the whole population of the state. We’re expecting a mass exodus, specially if more dams break.

A video of the dam breach, as well of other impact sites, can be seen here.

News links about the subject (in Portuguese): 

http://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2015/11/13/bombeiros-detectam-falha-em-barragem-que-nao-rompeu-em-mariana.htm

http://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2015/11/06/o-que-se-sabe-sobre-o-rompimento-das-barragens-em-mariana-mg.htm

http://g1.globo.com/ciencia-e-saude/noticia/2015/11/rompimento-de-barragens-em-mariana-perguntas-e-respostas.html

http://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/gerais/2015/11/13/interna_gerais,707556/prefeito-de-mariana-confirma-fissura-em-barragem-da-samarco.shtml