Fatal barge crashes fuel fear over Madeira River waterway expansion in Brazil
With an election looming, Amazon communities worry their safety will be traded for faster agribusiness growth.
Calama and Paraíso Grande, Brazil — A mother and her three children perished on January 17, 2025, when a soybean-loaded barge crashed into their stilt house in the Urumatuba riverine community, situated along the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon. Four months later, a freight vessel collided with three mining barges anchored in the adjacent Nova Catarina riverine community, located in the Manicoré municipality of the state of Amazonas.
The husband of the woman who died in the January incident and father of the three children, owned one of the mining barges. Local news sources reported the second accident to Mongabay, who were covering riverine communities in the Humaitá region, 190 kilometers southeast and downstream from Manicoré.
Upon witnessing the second accident, those interviewed expressed profound fear and shared experiences of losses or fatalities due to grain barge collisions in the Madeira River. Maria Delci Barros de Morais, a 59-year-old smallholder residing in the Paraíso Grande community, 30 minutes away from Humaitá by fast boat, voiced her concerns to Mongabay.
"We are very worried here in our community about these vessels," she expressed through her balcony window. "They've already run over someone we know." Morais recounted how the barge demolished the family's boat-home, averting a tragedy in their case. She emphasized the heightened risks during the river's high-water season, from December to...
Written by urgent.news from Mongabay's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
