Airborne Magnetometry to Identify Metallic Debris to Support Dredging and Search Activities at the Brumadinho Disaster Site – A Case Study

Abstract

This paper describes the procedures and results of an airborne magnetic survey using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) conducted to support Search and Rescue (S&R) teams after the failure of a mining tailing dam at the Corrego do Feijão Mine, in the state of Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil. The accident claimed 270 lives, practically destroying all the mine’s infrastructure. After the accident, the use of a fast, efficient, and cost-effective method to locate preferential sites for the rescue team to work was critical. Due to the difficulty of direct access to the impacted area, and since most of the affected infrastructure consisted of metallic materials, an airborne magnetometer was the logical choice. First, some performance tests were conducted in order to define the survey configurations, such as flight altitude, transect spacing and anomaly’s detectability threshold. After that, task priorities were set, and the survey area divided in small blocks according to their morphological characteristics using aerial photos of the impacted area. The results showed that the system was able to detect all relevant anomalies. The correlation of the anomalies with aerial photogrammetry helped to discard false anomalies, making the whole operation much more efficient. This increased the effectiveness of the S&R teams as well as the planning of the dredging operations by defining the preferential locations for the interventions.