BRAZIL – Australian mining giant BHP says mud spilled by the devastating collapse of a dam at a Brazilian mine is not toxic. On Thursday the UN said the dam burst at the Samarco mine unleashed a flood equivalent to “20,000 Olympic swimming pools of toxic mud”. The incident earlier this month in Minas Gerais state left 13 people dead, devastating several villages. Eleven people are still missing. The noxious river has trailed 500km from the mine into the Atlantic Ocean. The mining giant said in a statement the waste water in the dam, a by-product of iron ore extraction known as tailings, did not pose any threat to humans.(BBC)…[+]