{"id":7685,"date":"2022-03-22T08:32:47","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T12:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7685"},"modified":"2022-03-22T08:33:37","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T12:33:37","slug":"urban-mining-transforms-brazil-neighborhoods-into-ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7685","title":{"rendered":"Urban Mining Transforms Brazil Neighborhoods into Ghost Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

This part of Maceio, the capital of Brazil\u2019s northeastern Alagoas state, used to buzz with the sounds of cars, commerce and children playing. It went silent as residents evacuated en masse, eager to escape the looming destruction of their homes, which were cracking and crumbling.<\/p>\n

Beneath their floors, the subsurface was riddled with dozens of cavities: the legacy of four decades of rock salt mining in five urban neighborhoods. That caused the soil above to settle and structures atop it to start coming apart. Since 2020, the communities have hollowed out as tens of thousands of residents accepted payouts from petrochemical company Braskem to relocate.<\/p>\n

Few holdouts remain, several of whom told The Associated Press they imagine the ground under their feet resembling Swiss cheese. Still, Paulo Sergio Doe, 51, said he will never leave his home in the Pinheiro neighborhood where he grew up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company can\u2019t impose what it wants overnight to do away with the lives and histories of so many families,\u201d he said in an interview outside his home.<\/p>\n

Braskem is one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the Americas, owned primarily by Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras and construction giant Novonor, formerly known as Odebrecht.<\/p>\n

The company isn\u2019t forcibly evicting anyone, though those still here said it feels that way. It reached an agreement with prosecutors and public defenders to compensate families so they could uproot and start over elsewhere. By Braskem\u2019s count, 97.4% of affected homes \u2014 more than 14,000 \u2014 are now vacant, the company said in its 2021 earnings call on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The 55,000 evacuees left behind not just neighbors and friends, but also jobs; 4,500 mostly small- and medium-sized businesses that sustained 30,000 people were shuttered, according to a study The Federal University of Alagoas published last year. Among those businesses were local supermarkets and a ballet school that operated for 38 years, according to Adriana Capretz, part of the university\u2019s work group to monitor the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

The exodus is evident from above; departing residents salvaged everything they could sell for extra cash, including their roof tiles. Their removal allows unimpeded views inside the once-occupied spaces.<\/p>\n

Paulo Sergio Doe, his wife Alessandra Cavalcante Doe and their children pictured in the background, stand in front of their home, in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The window of an abandoned home is seen in the Bebedouro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Natalicia Goncalves, a 77-year-old retired teacher, looks out from the window of her home in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Israel Oliveira checks his mobile phone as he sits on a bed inside his damaged home in the Bom Parto neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The amount Braskem offered wasn\u2019t enough for Natal\u00edcia Gon\u00e7alves. The retired teacher, 77, also said she felt too old to start fresh. So she watched as everyone in Pinheiro left her. Now she lives inside a makeshift fortress behind boards and plants aimed at deterring would-be burglars. Braskem security guards do rounds on motorcycles, briefly interrupting the evenings\u2019 eerie silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve already done everything to force me to go, but I have my rights,\u201d she said from behind her home\u2019s fortified exterior. \u201cI\u2019m afraid, especially at night when no one is around. The light is dim, there\u2019s hardly any. I protect myself with my plants, but I\u2019m alone, with God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Braskem has so far disbursed about 40% of the more than 5 billion reais (about $1 billion) it has set aside for relocation, compensation of individuals including residents and local employees and the transfer of facilities like schools and hospitals, the company said in its earnings call. It is directing 6 billion reais more for closing and monitoring the salt mines, as well as social, environmental and urbanistic measures.<\/p>\n

Wrapping up the call, Braskem\u2019s CEO Roberto Lopes Pontes Sim\u00f5es highlighted the company\u2019s year, including \u201call the advance we had in Maceio\u201d in having relocated nearly everyone from the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

No house has been swallowed by the earth, nor was any person killed. Capretz, a professor in the university\u2019s architecture and urbanism school, said that doesn\u2019t mean heartache was avoided.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tragedy is happening, not just regarding the geological phenomena but, primarily, because there are cases of people who committed suicide, many who became sick with depression, lost their social lives, family ties, friends and neighbors,\u201d Capretz said as she walked through the Bebedouro neighborhood. \u201cNone of that is being considered by Braskem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
The ruins of an abandoned school stand in the Pinheiro neighborhood Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A discarded Barbie doll lays in a classroom of an abandoned school in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Children play during an activity day organized by the Baptist church in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Pere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The company\u2019s press office said in a lengthy response to AP questions that it provides free psychological consultations to any residents participating in the compensation and relocation program. It said the program was created based on law and legal rulings in similar cases and said compensation offers are always presented to individuals alongside their lawyer or a public defender.<\/p>\n

But negotiations can be clouded by sentiment; the price of a house isn\u2019t the same as the value of a home.<\/p>\n

Quit\u00e9ria Maria da Silva, 64, and her grandson were waiting for the rest of their family to come play dominos on a table they set up beneath the only lamppost on their street that\u2019s still functional. Even as da Silva said she would move were Braskem to pay her requested amount, she expressed ambivalence:<\/p>\n

\u201cI always lived in my house and now, if I have to leave here, where will I go?\u201d ___ AP reporter David Biller contributed from Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

People wait inside a railroad car at the train station in the Bom Parto neighborhood, in Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
Graffiti scrawled on the wall of an abandoned home reads in Portuguese; “Leave me in peace Braskem,” in the Farol neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Paulo Sergio Doe visits abandoned homes in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Children play in a pond at the Bom Parto neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)V<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Graffiti that reads in Portuguese; “Braskem out of Alagoas, killer”, is scrawled on the facade of an apartment building that has been vacated because of the threat of ground subsidence and geological problems caused by the Braskem mine in Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Paulo Sergio Doe shows a family tree sketched on a damaged wall of a neighbor’s home in the Pinheiro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
With her 9-year-old grandson Luri Andriel da Silva sitting nearby, Quiteria Maria da Silva calls out to her husband and daughter to come play dominoes, outside their home in the Bebedouro neighborhood of Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

– Eraldo Peres, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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