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imagePAULO: Brazilian prosecutors have filed a US$43.4 billion lawsuit against BHP Billiton and Vale over the Samarco mine dam burst that killed 19 and wreaked environmental havoc.

The authorities "estimate the preliminary value for repairs to be 155 billion reals," the public prosecutor's office in the state of Minas Gerais said in a statement.

The announcement sent BHP's share price plummeting 9.36 percent to close at Aus$18.79 in Sydney, with a fall in iron ore prices adding to the selling pressure.

Brazilian-owned Vale and Anglo-Australian BHP, which co-own the Samarco iron ore facility, had already agreed to a separate settlement of US$6.2 billion with the Brazilian government in March.

Those funds were ordered to go toward compensating for social and environmental damages and to be paid over 15 years.

But the deal was criticized by prosecutors, who said that the amount of money was not calculated realistically.

The accident on November 5 last year near Mariana in Minas Gerais began when a tailings dam at Samarco's mine failed, unleashing the flood of polluted water and mud into the River Doce, one of the most important in Brazil.

A village was destroyed, drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people were interrupted and damage reached as far as the river's mouth on the Atlantic coast, with wildlife, tourism businesses and fishing communities all suffering.

In February, police announced homicide charges against seven people, including six Samarco executives -- one of them the chief executive at the time of the accident.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2016

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