THE torrential rain They have already caused at least 95 deaths, several missing and considerable economic and material damage, which is why the Government has decreed three days of official mourning.
Could it be avoided? Are there political responsibilities? The President of the Government, Rock Sanchezlaunched a call for unity this Tuesday during an urgent appearance at Moncloa and asked to “lend our shoulders” because in crises like this “Spain gives the best of itself”.
But political criticism did not wait, launched both against the central government and against the Ministry of Transport led by the Socialist Party. Oscar Puentelike the Valencian generalityled by the popular Carlos Mazon.
One of them was the parliamentary spokesperson for ERC, Gabriel Rufianwho attacked Mazón in the halls of Congress for having eliminated the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE) considering it as a “beach bar”. “There are people who died because, according to some, they did not want to have a dignified and well-equipped emergency unit.”
Mazón abolished this body as part of the restructuring of the public sector to which he had committed after reaching a government agreement with Vox. The UVE, created by Ximo Puig, It was born as an operational management unit responsible for coordinating resources to respond to any type of emergency. It was therefore not created from scratch, but was built on the basis of an already existing structure.
Opposition sources also criticize that Mazón deleted a social media post published at noon on Tuesday in which he stated that the emergency due to the storm would decrease in intensity at 6:00 p.m. “This tweet was deleted from your account yesterday!”, criticized several users of X, formerly Twitter.
Delay in alerts
It is precisely this natural disaster that coincided with the use of a new mobile phone alert system by the Valencian Generalitat. The system was used for the first time independently this Tuesday after 8:00 p.m.
It was a massive warning. The roar of the beep, which sounded on hundreds of thousands of devices simultaneously, even if they were silentshocked the population and anticipated the scale of what was happening.
But it was too late. The waterspout started much earlier and many citizens they received the message with no room for maneuver.
The opposition also accused the regional government for “the delay” in using this tool.
Although the SMS was sent at 8:00 p.m., sources from the Mazón management say that the heavy rain alert has been decreed since Sunday morning and that on Monday this alert was increased to the red level. “This would amount to admitting that since the Government set up a monitoring committee on Tuesday at 8:45 p.m., it also did so late and poorly warned the population,” explain these sources.
These sources also insist on the fact that, in any event, the autonomous powers do not allow fundamental rights such as mobility to be restricted, because there is no alarm statusa measure that would correspond to the government of the nation.
PP sources also point the finger at the Ministry of Transport, in the hands of Oscar Bridge. “It is worth remembering that the government did not stop the movement of trains or planes yesterday. Therefore, not a single lesson.”
