GroundProbe Provides Safety-Critical Assistance to Samarco Following Recent Events
Within hours of recent events at Samarco, the geotechnical engineers from the mine reached out to GroundProbe requesting monitoring assistance. GroundProbe immediately arranged the deployment of two SSR-XT radars to provide a complete risk reduction strategy for the mine to assess further risks and hazards.
The flexible scan angle area of the radars was put to great use, allowing the systems to be placed in strategic locations, to detect any future movement and instability of Santarém and Germano dams. From day one, GroundProbe provided live, accurate data and alarms on the crisis centre to guarantee safety within the immediate area, using GroundProbe’s highly advanced and intuitive software, SSR-Viewer. SSR-Viewer provides front view photographs and 3D data, which specifically focuses on known risks and instantly detects fast-occurring changes, allowing enough time for personnel to remove themselves from site before a failure occurs.
GroundProbe has also been providing daily geotechnical reports, training and continued local support. SSR-XT works as either an immediate safety-critical monitoring tool or as part of a longer term monitoring campaign. It is extensively used to monitor the stability of tailings facilities in mines where a known risk or hazard has been identified.
Another suitable monitoring solution is GroundProbe’s SSR-SARx, which has been used extensively around the world to monitor dams, both in civil and tailings applications. Also a flexible system, SSR-SARx can detect fast and slow moving failures, to maintain a safe working area. Its unique periodic monitoring allows the system to be taken away and brought back after a period of time. It is a system that is used for landslides and dam monitoring health checks around the world.
A recent example of GroundProbe providing safety-critical monitoring for a tailings dam was in September 2014, when the SSR-XT was used to further monitor and assess risks at Brazil’s Herculano mine. GroundProbe Brazil and its global geotechnical support services team were able to provide 24/7 assistance to allow Herculano to rapidly collect the data they needed, to restore safety on site.