THE Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) ceased issuing warnings at 4:13 p.m., Tuesday, October 29. At that time, he reported that the flow of the Poyo ravine, the zero point of DANA, which has already caused more than 200 deaths, was in decline. But at 6:43 p.m., they were already issuing a warning regarding a very significant increase in flow, “particularly dangerous”.
The alert issued two and a half hours earlier was the third of the day during which the CHJ communicated a drop in flow. This is what he was referring to this Monday morning Carlos Mazon when he clarified that the basin entity had “deactivated the alerts” up to “three times”.
The president of Valencian generality He tried to defend his leadership. And to explain why his government only launched the emergency alert on the cell phones of residents of the southern metropolitan area of Valencia at 8:11 p.m., too late. But he did it by making mistakes or exaggerating the words. Change warning to alert. And specifying that these alerts have been “lifted” “up to three times”. And this gave rise to a denial from the Ministry of Therese Ribera.
“The hydrographic confederations do not issue alerts, the competent body to issue hydrological alerts are the regional emergency services,” he explains in his note.
But the press release adds that “from 5 p.m., a sharp increase of the flow from the Poyo ravine. At 5:30 p.m. it reached the same level of capacity that motivated the alert issued by the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat Valenciana at noon.
Without apologizing for the tragic effects, the Generalitat emphasizes that, during these two and a half hours, and despite the sudden increase in the flow of the ravine, the CHJ did not issue no reviews. And remember that the Civil Protection Act I forced him to do it.
The standard is exhaustive, in its article 12.3: “All Public Administration bodies that can contribute to the detection, monitoring and forecasting of threats of imminent danger to people and property will immediately inform the National Surveillance Center and Coordination of Civil Protection Emergencies of any situation of which they are aware and which could give rise to a civil protection emergency.
“A real danger”
However, between 4:13 p.m., when everything seemed to be back to normal, and 6:43 p.m., when the warning had already changed to “real danger”, the CHJ technicians did not communicate with the Generalitat Emergencies. Even those who were meeting at this very moment at CECOPI with the authorities of Carlos Mazon.
A meeting which began at 5:00 p.m., at the very moment when the CHJ now admits to having already detected the enormous increase in flow. And this continued until after 7 p.m.
And this is one of the reasons why the Generality to explain why regional authorities have not issued a new alert.
“The email sent by the basin organization at 4:13 p.m. confirms that the flow was 28.7 cubic meters per second in the Poyo ravine and the Emergency Center does not deactivate the hydrological alert,” explains the Genelralitat.
“At 6:55 p.m., the flow rate already reached 2,282 cubic meters per second”, or almost 100 times more during these two and a half hours. “At that moment, the force of the water, which had been reflected for two hours before, ended up driving the measuring systems,” explains the Confederation press release. But it was too late.
At the CECOPI meeting were present representatives of the Generalitat, the Delegation of the Government, of AEMET and of CHJ. The representatives of this basin organization, attached to the Ministry of Ecological Transition “did not warn of any risk”, insists the Generalitat.
“They did not send any communication to the Emergency Coordination Center between 4:13 p.m. and 6:43 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, despite the “sharp increase” in the flow of the Poyo ravine,” explain Mazón government sources.
And he adds that even if the CHJ itself affirms that the consequences were “particularly dangerous from 5:00 p.m.”, there was no communication despite what the law establishes until 6:43 p.m., “when a flow of 1,686 cubic meters was reported. secondly with an upward trend and a very rapid flood.
