On November 5th, 2015, Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, was inundated in toxic sludge after a mine dam burst. See here for the full story as well as some ground level photos showing the magnitude of the disaster. More here, including a video.
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The dam that collapsed.
The area near the dam.
Over 40 km downstream the town of Barra Longa was affected too.
Wikipedia has a satellite image of the mouth of the river showing the mud reaching the Atlantic Ocean and here is a video showing it from ground level.
To see the above locations in Google Earth and to explore further download this KML file
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The JavaScript code for the ‘before and after’ effect is from here
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.