The mayor of Pará de Minas (MG), the municipality that houses the Usina do Carioca dam, told the CNN this Monday (10) that the structure, under the responsibility of the Santanense company, could still break due to water and flood nearby regions, where there are farms and homes.
Despite the removal of residents from the risk zone, two families are still there, said the mayor, Elias Diniz. “In the Pará de Minas part, we moved 30 people. And in the nearby cities of Onça do Pitangui and Conceição do Pará, another 100 people. We still have two isolated families”, he said.
The mayor says that a helicopter will fly over the dam area this Monday morning, to identify any damage to the dam and rescue the families. “We don’t have access through bridges. The water is running over it”, he said.
With the rains and the overflow of the dam, around 80% of the plantations on the farms surrounding the dam were destroyed, said the mayor, and the situation could be even more serious in the face of an eventual rupture.
The City Hall says that the action plan for a possible worsening of the situation is already being put into practice with the collection of families, but that there are cases of people who return to their homes despite the risk.
“We know that many return. As a precaution, we are monitoring again and reiterating that people leave their homes, go to a support point (of the City Hall) or to the home of relatives”, said Diniz.
The mayor stressed that identifying the real situation of the dam is a challenge because it is filled with water and it is not possible to see any damage to the structure. However, one of the company’s central pipelines has already broken, he said, and there is still a risk that the sides, where there is more intense overflow, give way to the water pressure.
“We need the company, as a matter of urgency, to provide all the calculations and we are going to check if there is still a possibility of rupture in this part”, said Diniz. “What we need is for the engineering team to present all the structural issues of the dam at this moment so that we can carry out an analysis”, he added.
According to him, the calculations need to be made by the engineering teams of the municipality and the company and by the Fire Department to more accurately identify the risks and improve the action plan.
Despite the obstacle still in relation to data, the mayor says that the company has provided assistance and had an “excellent” relationship with the municipal administration. The problem, he said, has been the volume of water in the region this summer.
“We are on full alert. We are following the entire flow and the volume of water, which is still very expressive. Just yesterday, there was 140 millimeters of water”, said the mayor when mentioning that the normal volume of rain for this time of year is 70 millimeters.
Reference: CNN Brasil
