PARACATU DE BAIXO: Jose Pascual thought the end of the world had come when red mud, pouring from a broken Brazilian mining dam, engulfed his village a year ago. In a way, he was right.
Twelve months from the deadly accident at an iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state, the Samarco company and its giant owners BHP-Billiton and Vale say they are putting the pieces back together.
Yet the way of life Pascual has known all his 76 years in the village of Paracatu de Baixo shattered beyond repair that day.
The disaster began in the afternoon of November 5, 2015, when a dam holding mining waste burst without warning about 17 miles (27 kilometers) up a small river from Paracatu.
Thirty two million cubic meters (42 million cubic yards) of sludge rushed down the valley, killing 19 people unable to get out of the way and smashing anything in the flood's path, starting with the adjacent village of Bento Rodrigues.
A helicopter reached Paracatu in time to warn villagers before their turn came.
"I was in the garden and my wife was putting clothes out to dry when they came," recalled Pascual, a lean, strong man, whose snowy hair was hidden under a battered Stetson. "They said: 'Get out of here!'"
Running uphill with the rest of his neighbors, Pascual heard the disaster before he saw it.
"It was the noise of a runaway train. Then we looked at what was coming," he said. "It was the color of the clay. There wasn't even water, just clay coming and this strong wind."
The sliding wall of mud tore apart or submerged orchards, houses, roads, cars, animals, trees.
"It was like the end of the world," Pascual said. "The lights went out."
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