Environment minister Izabella Teixeira said a lawsuit would be filed demanding that the companies and the mine operator Samarco, which they co-own, create a fund of 20 billion reais to pay for environmental recovery and compensation for victims.
“There was a huge impact from an environmental point of view,” Teixeira said at a press conference in the capital Brasilia.
“It is not a natural disaster. It is a disaster prompted by economic activity, but of a magnitude equivalent to those disasters created by forces of nature.”
The lawsuit will be filed on Monday, attorney general Luis Inacio Adams said.
At least 13 people died and some 11 remain missing from the flood of mud and wastewater triggered by the breaking dam at the Samarco iron ore mine near Mariana in south-eastern Brazil on 5 November.
The deluge swept down the river Doce to the Atlantic, sparking claims of major contamination, although the mining companies insist there is no serious pollution.
The size of the fund demanded by the Brazilian government dwarfs initial estimates by Deutsche Bank that a clean-up could cost about $1bn.
Adams said that the companies would be asked to pay the amount out gradually, as a percentage of their profits.
BHP, which is listed in London and Australia, has seen its shares fall sharply in the wake of the disaster and as commodity prices have weakened in recent months. At the end of trading in Australia on Friday, the shares were at a more than 10-year low of $18.77. In London they closed down 3% at 807p, meaning they have almost halved in the past 12 months.
Adams said he hoped the corporations - BHP Billiton is the world’s biggest miner and Vale is the world’s biggest iron ore specialist - would co-operate with the government.
Both have said they want to meet their obligations.
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