The general in chief of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Javier Marcosexplained today that its troops began deploying in the province of Valencia at 3:41 p.m. on October 29 “hours before receiving official orders“, in view of the reports which were already beginning to report a dramatic number of deaths after the floods caused by DANA.
At that time, a first team of 96 soldiers left the Bétera military base (Valencia) to participate in the rescue efforts of those affected.
However, on this figure, Only 56 soldiers managed to reach the Utiel-Requena areawhere the epicenter of the damage caused by DANA was located: it took them almost two hours to reach Chiva (one of the most affected towns), due to the destroyed roads they found in their path.
The other 40 had to return to their base, although on the way back they were rescuing people stuck on the highway.
General Javier Marcos presented these data, during the press conference offered from the Moncloa Palace, to respond to criticism that indicates that there was a late response from the government.
For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, categorically denied this Saturday that there had been a “information cutoff” in the alerts launched by the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar and the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) on the day of October 29.
“There were all the necessary and precise alerts and on a permanent basis,” defended Marlaska after participating in the crisis committee held at Moncloa. The head of the Interior stressed that “any questions asked on this subject lack the necessary veracity and what happened”.
However, Marlaska did not present any data that refutes those published by EL ESPAÑOL, according to which the CHJ stopped reporting the flow of the Poyo ravine during the most critical hours.
The Hydrographic Confederation reported at 4:13 p.m. that this canal was carrying 28 cubic meters of water, which suggests that the situation was out of danger.
And it was only at 6:43 p.m. that the CHJ sent the next email, in which it reported that the flow rate had skyrocketed to 1,686 cubic meters. The time of two and a half hours between the two alerts would have been crucial to alert the population and save lives.
The protocols require the CHJ to issue alerts on the flow of the Poyo ravine when it exceeds 150 cubic meters per second. But this did not happen at 5 p.m., when the flow rate was 325 cubic meters, nor at 4 p.m., when it was already 1,725. The email sent at 6:43 p.m. arrived too late.
