Until 9 members of the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ), dependent on the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge which it directs Therese Riberathey had information about the flood caused by DANA on October 29 in Valencia, but they did not call the Emergency Center 112 of the Generalitat. This is indicated by sources close to the electronic communications that occurred on that tragic day.
Concretely, in the 5:56 p.m. email that the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) sent to 112, a list of recipients appears, among which is not only the president of said organization, Miguel Polo Cebellán, former advisor to the PSOE of. Titaguas, as published by OKDIARIO, but also eight other senior officials and technicians of the CHJ. Concretely, it is Enrique Vicente Campos RoselloHead of Operations; Gregorio by Julián Péreztechnician of the Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH); Ricardo Dominguez Lillo, head of the Water Police department; Francisco Javier Ferrer Polo Shirt, technical director responsible for the SAIH system; Diego Irles Rocamorahead of the works department; Cristina Sola Garciawater commissioner; Manual Toran Busutiltechnical director; And Ignacio Valero GarcésSAIH sector head.
None of these members of the CHJ contacted Emergency 112 of the Generalitat by telephone to alert them of the dangerous situation in which the Poyo ravine found itself. In the 5:56 p.m. email, the CHJ indicated that the Forata reservoir had started to sink and that flow rates in excess of 1,000 cubic meters per second were expected.
A few minutes later, around 6 p.m., The flow in the Poyo ravine reached 1,725.89 cubic meters per second. Despite this, the CHJ did not send any communication on this subject to the Emergency Department, while the basin organization’s protocol requires that any flooding greater than 150 m3 per second be communicated to Civil Protection.
This was not already the case until 6:46 p.m.always by email and without any phone call, when the CHJ sent the controversial email to the emergency room announcing a flow of 1,686 cubic meters per second with an upward trend and very rapid flooding in the Poyo ravine. At that time, the flood was already devastating towns like Paiporta. And this flow was equivalent to 4 times that of the Ebro and 35 times that of the Tajo-Segura transfer.
Nothing from the ravine since 4:13 p.m.
In addition, the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) has not communicated anything on the specific evolution of the flow of the Poyo ravine since 4:13 p.m. That’s to say, The CHJ spent two and a half hours without saying anything at all to the Emergency Department of the Generalitat of the situation of the aforementioned ravine. And this, despite the fact that up to 9 senior officials and technicians of the CHJ were aware of the danger thanks to the aforementioned email at 5:56 p.m.
At 5:00 p.m., the flow rate was already 325.52 cubic meters per second and by 6:00 p.m., the flow rate had skyrocketed to 1,725.89 m3 per second. In no case did the CHJ send any communication about these circumstances to the Emergencies, that is to say, it did not notify anything to 112 of the Generalitat. while the flow rate well exceeded 150 m3 per second since 5 p.m.. The protocol specifies that the CHJ is required to immediately communicate to the Emergency Department any increase in flow rate greater than 150 m3 per second.
“No one could have predicted it”
For his part, the head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Lieutenant General Javier Marcossaid this Friday that “no one could predict” the scale of the DANA when it passed through the Valencian Community, and that despite this, they intervened “as early as possible” with the information available at that time.
During a press conference at the Ministry of Defense, after the meeting held this morning by the crisis committee chaired by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, Marcos affirmed that the response to the DANA emergency cannot be scaled because. this “quantity” of water “no one could” predict. This storm not only affected the Valencian Community, but also Castile-La Mancha, causing at least 222 deaths.
“The speed of the water, since the beginning of the basins, as well as that of the mud, no one could predict. All information provided was good. And we compared it while we were already playing, to get there as quickly as possible. We intervene as quickly as possible »said the head of the EMU, adding that the information that arrived “did not fail”, because everything that was able to be transferred “within the expected deadlines”, according to what he collected. Ep.
