PODCAST | The night the mud came: the Merriespruit disaster

Listen to the story:

On February 22, 1994, most residents of Merriespruit, a Virginia suburb, had just settled into bed when water ran through shot their front doors. After a sudden downpour earlier in the evening, this was the first sign something was wrong.

Just 300m from the nearest house, a tailings dam had burst its banks and a wall of acidic mud was falling on the unsuspecting to residents.

When the sun came up the next morning, Merriespruit was devastated – 17 people had lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. Although at first glance this appeared to be a natural phenomenon, the truth was that the dam was a disaster waiting to happen. The real cause of the incident was apparently negligence.

In True Crime SA Episode 85, we delve into the events of that dark night and the actions taken by those responsible for the tailings dam up to a year before the Disaster.

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