"Brazilian petrochemical company settles with city where mining destroyed entire neighbourhoods", 22 July 2023

...Brazil's petrochemical giant Braskem said on Friday it had reached a USD 356 million settlement with a coastal city where four decades of the company's rock salt mining destroyed five urban neighbourhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people.

Around 200,000 people in the Alagoas state's capital of Maceio were affected by the excessive extraction of rock salt, according to the Brazil Senate's website. In recent years, several Maceio communities became ghost towns as residents accepted Braskem's payouts to relocate.

The settlement...will be used for structural works in the city and for a residents' support fund, the municipality said in a statement. The agreement does not invalidate negotiations between Braskem and the residents of the affected areas, it added.

The company has so far paid over 3.7 billion reais (USD 775 million) in various compensations, including financial aid, Braskem said earlier this month. It said that Friday's settlement "represents yet another important advance'' in the issue of Alagoas...

Local activists were less enthusiastic following Friday's announcement. Pastor Wellington Santos at the Baptist church in Pinheiro, one of the affected neighbourhoods, said he recognises the funds will be used to "modernise the city and make it even more beautiful", but wondered whether any amount of money could compensate for the destruction. Alexandre Sampaio, who heads an association of the mining victims, said the full extend of the mining damage is difficult to comprehend...