It was not just the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry, the Provincial Deputation of Valencia or the University. The Ministry of Environment, Infrastructure and Territory, led by Vicente Martínez Mus, canceled a meeting with union representatives scheduled for the next day, the day of the DANA disaster, October 28. The same morning of October 29, she also alerted her regional environmental officers with weather alerts to stay in their offices or other safe locations due to the danger that could come. This is what the CGT, a libertarian union that denounced Mazón to the Valencia Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for an alleged offense against workers’ rights, says. The regional department, for its part, did not respond to elDiario.es’ questions.
The CGT assures that the general director of Natural and Animal Environment, Luis Gomis, canceled a meeting with union representatives scheduled for October 29 to avoid travel by road. He did so, according to the union, at 4 p.m. on October 28.
On the other hand, the General Directorate of Forest Fire Prevention, headed by Civil Guard Captain Rosa Touris, also gave instructions to the staff of the Preventive Surveillance Plan of the public company VAERSA not to not go to the field on October 29, 30 and 31.
In addition, Director General Luis Gomis asked environmental agents in areas declared pre-emergency orange or red not to go out. The internal memo was signed on October 29 at 11:30 a.m., while President Carlos Mazón continued his agenda of events unrelated to DANA.
The document, to which elDiario.es had access, explains: “In areas where a pre-emergency color orange or higher has been established, service agents will not carry out their work in the natural environment, that is- i.e. if the conditions allow it, they will report to the demarcation office, otherwise they will carry out their work in secure premises (park offices, town halls, housing) and will inform the regional head of the location of each agent of movement. be on the roads and priority will be given to safety work and assistance to people at Town Halls, self-training and writing reports.
The Valencian Security and Emergency Response Agency had already decreed a red level alert – extreme risk – for rains and storms on the south coast of Valencia, and a level 1 emergency situation in the Ribera region Alta.
The preventive reaction of the Department of Environment, Infrastructure and Territory on the day of the DANA disaster, and even the day before, was not the only one on the part of the Valencian Executive.
The Ministry of Finance suspended an election ceremony for civil servants in a circular on Monday 28 at 12:10 p.m. Nuria Montes, then Minister of Industry, also suspended an event with Valencia’s employers on October 29 at 5 p.m., as sources from the regional department confirmed to this newspaper. The University of Valencia had suspended classes the day before, a decision criticized by Mazón a few hours before DANA.
And the Provincial Delegation of Valencia sent its workers home the same day as DANA, at 2 p.m. Shortly afterward, the carefree President Mazón left the Palau de la Generalitat to attend a controversial lunch with journalist Maribel Vilaplana that lasted until after 6 p.m. Carlos Mazón arrived at the L’Eliana Emergency Coordination Center around 7:30 p.m. The massive mobile alert was sent at 8:11 p.m., when hundreds of citizens were already trapped.
