Tailings dam failures often stem from ‘production over safety’ pressures, says academic

Ever since the Brumadinho tailings dam collapse, in Brazil, in 2019, which claimed the lives of 270 people and led to massive environmental damage, there has been a spotlight on how mining companies manage and monitor tailings storage facilities (TSFs).

Discussing the most common causes of tailings dam failures, University of Witwatersrand School of Civil and Environmental Engineering senior lecturer Dr Luis Torres-Cruz says it is often not the geotechnical factors related to the physical structure of the TSF that cause failures, but the organisational and regulatory environment that TSFs are managed in.