The Brazilian mining giant Vale has agreed to pay $7bn compensation for a deadly dam collapse that killed 272 people. The Brumadinho disaster, on 25 January 2019, is considered one of worst environmental tragedies in Brazilian history. At just after noon that day the tailing dam’s sudden collapse caused a toxic torrent of mining waste to sweep across a rural pocket of Minas Gerais state at speeds of up to 80km/h, swallowing everything in its path. Many of the dead were Vale employees and 11 victims were never found. On Thursday, just over two years later, Minas Gerais’s governor, Romeu Zema, announced Vale had agreed to pay the state R$37.68bn (£5bn/$7bn) in what he claimed was “Latin America’s biggest reparation package”. “We did it!” Zema tweeted, adding that the multibillion-dollar settlement would not affect criminal or civil claims relating to the collapse’s human and environmental cost. “We can’t change the past but we can improve the future,” Zema added, according to the newspaper Estado de São Paulo. In a statement Vale’s chief executive, Eduardo Bartolomeo, said: “Vale is committed to fully repair and compensate the damage caused by the tragedy in Brumadinho and to increasingly contribute to the improvement and development of the communities in which we operate. “We know that we have work to do and we remain firm in that purpose,” Bartolomeo added. The deal was reportedly less than the R$54bn Minas Gerais had been demanding from Vale over the disaster in Brumadinho, a town of about 40,000 inhabitants just southwest of the state capital Belo Horizonte. But Zema claimed the funds would help repair the local economy and environment, both battered by the mining disaster. Civil society groups and the families of some victims were less convinced, pointing out that a large chunk of the settlement would be used to finance infrastructure projects in other parts of the state. “It was an agreement made behind closed doors, without the participation of those affected,” Joceli Andrioli from the Movement of People Affected by Dams group told the Associated Press. Marconi Machado, whose nephew, Wanderson da Silva, was killed in the disaster, said he feared the money “would probably end up in the hands of people who have nothing to do with the tragedy”. Last month Machado said grieving relatives had erected a billboard to remember the life of Wanderson, with whom he had played in a local band that played Beatles and Deep Purple covers. “That’s all over – it’s all gone,” Machado said. “My sister will never recover from this. What bothers me is that Vale doesn’t want to know about the feelings of those left behind and all the plans and the dreams we had with those who departed.” “So many dreams went up in smoke,” Machado said. “So many dreams.”