Under the agreement, Samarco — a joint venture of Brazilian mining giant Vale and Anglo-Australian firm BHP — will pay 132 billion reais ($23 billion) over 20 years to compensate for human, environmental and infrastructure damage caused by the release of an immense amount of toxic mining waste into a major river in southeastern Minas Gerais state, killing 19 people and ravaging entire villages.

“We are fixing a disaster that could have been avoided, but wasn’t,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a hall of the presidential palace, surrounded by governors of the affected states, members of his administration, reporters and victims.