Waste Unleashed From Brazil Dam on Its Way to a Larger River

A dead fish floats in the Paraopeba River, full of mud that was released by the collapse of a mining company dam near a community of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous people in Brumadinho, Brazil, on Jan. 29, 2019. Leo Correa/AP Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO—A torrent of mining waste unleashed by a dam breach that killed at least 84 people in southeastern Brazil is now heading down a small river with high concentrations of iron oxide, threatening to contaminate a much larger river that provides drinking water to communities in five of the country’s 26 states.

The release of the muddy waste has already turned the normally greenish water of the Paraopeba River brown about 11 miles (18 kilometers) downstream from the southeastern city of Brumadhinho, where the broken dam is.