Cubatão is a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, 12 kilometers away from Santos seaport, the largest in Latin America.

[4] In the early 1980s, Cubatão was one of the most polluted cities in the world, nicknamed "Valley of Death", due to births of brainless children and respiratory, hepatic and blood illnesses.

[citation needed] Around 0:00 BRT (3:00 GMT) on Saturday, 25 February 1984, an oil spill set the shantytown Vila Socó on fire, killing 93 people according to official figures of the government, though the actual death toll may be more than 200.

[5] The contamination of workers with persistent organic pollutants put the now defunct Rhodia into Greenpeace's top 10 world's worst corporate crimes ever in its report to Rio Summit in 1992.

][citation needed] Although things have improved a lot, it is impossible to completely clean the soil and groundwater and while many large industries continue to work in such a small area, there will always be some pollution.