The Court of Instruction number 15 of Valencia opened a preliminary procedure following the complaint filed by Clean hands against those responsible for the National Meteorological Agency (Aemet), the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) and the Valencian Security and Emergency Response Agency of the Generalitat for their DANA Management which left more than 200 dead in the province.
The organization attributes the alleged crimes of manslaughter, serious injury and reckless damage to them.
In the order, dated November 12, in accordance with the distribution rules of the Deanery of the capital, the judge agrees to recuse himself from knowledge of the facts in favor of the Court of Instruction number 20 of Valencia, since this body was the first to the capital to open preliminary proceedings for the death of a person following floods in the city with a view to carrying out an autopsy.
As reported by ABC, the letter signed by the general secretary of Manos Cleans, Miguel Bernard, was initially directed against the president of the AémetMaría José Rallo del Olmo, and against the director of Valencian Security and Emergency Response AgencyEmilio Argüeso.
“The Aemet Red Alert was given at 8:00 a.m. on October 29 and the Valencian Security and Emergency Response Agency sent a first notification at 8:10 p.m. through the ES-MEDIO ALERTS system, sending messages to citizens, which only reached part of the population”, indicates the complaint. In addition, it highlights that “the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar alerted on October 30 at noon that the situation of the flow of the Rambla del Poyo in Riba-Roja was alarming”, therefore, in his opinion, the notice arrived “late”.
However, a few days later, the organization expanded its letter to include the president of the CHJ, Miguel Polo. Mains Propres argues that “the Confederation has the SAIH tool (Automatic Hydrological Information System), which was not functioning correctly”, in addition to the fact that this organization dependent on the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge “has a gauging station on the same boulevard.” del Poyo and could have detected and alerted the arriving avenue.
Likewise, he defends that the CHJ “informed the Generalitat by email, at 3:50 p.m.”. that the flow of the Rambla del Poyo was low and that the data was not updated, in the same way, until the situation was already critical at 6:43 p.m. He also maintains that since “the Confederation in charge of rivers has a budget of 58.2 million euros and has only spent 1.1 million euros on preventive construction and, on the other hand, more than eight million ‘euros in staff remuneration’, all these elements or circumstances presuppose criminal liability.
