HISTORY & CULTURE

To carry iron to the world, Brazil’s 500-mile rail disrupted countless lives

Photographer spent years documenting communities transformed by a freight line that cuts across a mountainous jungle to reach seaports on the Atlantic Ocean.

In Piquiá de Baixo, residents play in a small river polluted by nearby steel factories that process iron from the Mina de Carajás, the world’s largest iron ore pit. The train, carrying the raw material, passes overhead roughly every 20 minutes.

Photographs byIan Cheibub

Text byNational Geographic Staff

October 27, 2022

11 min read

At the edge of the Amazon rainforest state of Pará, in north-central Brazil, sits the largest iron ore pit mine on the planet. Extracted from the depths of the Mina de Carajás are metals found in everyday appliances and items around the globe.

The Carajás mine produces so much raw material in a year—some 100 million metric tons in 2020 alone—that in today’s world it is nearly impossible to avoid its gray, sooty stamp, shined and sparkled by the laundry machine that is often long-distance global trade. But how does so much iron get from a mine in the middle of the forest to a seaport as steel, where it can then be shipped to the furthest corners of the world?

The answer is a 550-mile railway, which stretches from the mine, deep in the mountainous jungle, to the port of Ponta da Madeira in São Luís, at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The train carries ore in its metal boxcars as it traverses the land and soars over rivers across tall trestles, stopping at steel refinery plants along the way.

The Greater Carajás Project, as the entire industrial system surrounding the mine and the railway is known—and Vale S.A., the Brazilian mining company in charge of it—has faced scrutiny from international human rights and environmental organizations for alleged abuses and violations that have transformed life for the many communities along its path.

Some homes have been deemed structurally unsound due to the constant rumble of the train; others have been removed to make way for construction, leaving people internally displaced. Residents precariously crossing the tracks in places where there is no safe passage have been run over.

In Piquiá de Baixo, a particularly affected town where steel mills were built in the 1980s, some 65 percent of community members now suffer from respiratory problems, according to a 2012 study by the International Federation for Human Rights that was cited in a 2020 UN report following the Human Rights Council’s visit to the region. Others have had ophthalmological and dermatological diseases and burns caused by improperly disposed residue and toxic waste from “pig iron,” an intermediate product from the processing to steel.

Brazilian photographer Ian Cheibub has spent several months over the course of the past three years following the railroad and spending time with these communities along the tracks. Shot originally in black and white, the images portray a world transformed by the cargo railroad.

Residents of the Mutum II community in Brazil try fishing from a pool of water left from a river that was disrupted by the construction of a 550-mile railway, which stretches from the Carajás mine through rural communities across northern Brazil. Mutum II is one of the many communities impacted by the Carajás railroad, which began running in the late 1970s.

Children play in Santa Rosa dos Pretos, one of Brazil's many quilombos—communities established by Africans who escaped slavery. In Santa Rosa dos Pretos, the Carajás railroad caused the only river to run dry.

Residents from Mutum II produce flour for sale in the nearby municipality of Arari, Brazil.

Amjire Parkateje stands in front of two logs before an ancestral log run that takes place every month in the Indigenous Mãe Maria territory. "God made the Sumauma (the tree) for the Indigenous run,” he says.

Edna Teresa Belfort rests on a hammock at a house in the Santa Rosa dos Pretos quilombo. Residents here, whose ancestors escaped slavery and established the community, have long been fighting to obtain ownership rights to their land.

Jose Antonio Dias Cardoso and his wife Leonilda Cardoso hold portraits of their sons. — Jose Antonio Dias Cardoso and his wife Leonilda Cardoso hold portraits of their sons, who left their town of Piquia de Baixo.

Aerial view of the Itaqui Port in São Luis, Brazil. — Aerial view of the Itaqui Port in São Luis, Brazil where the mountains of iron ore extracted from the mines is processed before being shipped abroad.

A young boy named Enzo Pires sleeps in his grandmother's bed. — Enzo Pires, from the Santa Rosa dos Pretos territory, sleeps in his grandmother's bed.

A crack marks a wall with a phone number written on it at the home of Maria Pereira, 64, in Marabá in the state of Pará, Brazil. The rumble of trains traveling on the Carajás railway has caused many homes to crack and and ultimately crumble.

Daguimar Jardim stands in front of her father’s tomb at a cemetery now part of the S11D mining area. When the iron mine was discovered, the small farmers who lived in this area were displaced. Once a year, they visit the cemetery, jumping a fence. A forest has grown on top of the graves.

People play soccer at Piquiá da Conquista. — People play soccer at Piquiá da Conquista, a new settlement under construction in order to relocate residents from Piquiá de Baixo.

A horse stands in the soccer field of MutumII. Residents of the community, isolated as a consequence of the Carajás railroad, rely on horses to transport water and other basic sources.

A woman crosses the bridge over the Carajás railroad at the Km7 neighborhood in Marabá, Brazil.

Ian Cheibub is a visual storyteller based in Brazil. He currently works covering stories in Brazil for international media outlets. His photo and video works have also been published on GEO Magazine, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, De Volkskrant, STERN, VICE, NRC, among other outlets.