Brazil: Despite high-profile protests, construction of huge Belo Monte Dam slated for 2011
ALTAMIRA, Brazil — For Raimunda Gomes da Silva, the impending construction of a huge hydroelectric dam here in the Amazon is painful déjà vu.
Raimunda Gomes da Silva does not want to abandon her home in Invasão dos Padres, but the government is telling her and thousands others to leave.
About 25 years ago, the building of another dam more than 200 miles east of here flooded her property, driving a plague of poisonous snakes, insects and jaguars onto her land, she said, before submerging it completely.
Now, after starting a new life in Altamira, the government is telling her she needs to leave again, this time to make way for the Belo Monte dam, which will flood a large swath of this city, displacing thousands of people.