“Five hours passed until he did it for the whole province”

Robles exposed from the gallery of Senate presidents the entire chronology of the actions of the Armed Forces on Tuesday, October 29 and the following days. As noted, at 7:39 that morning, the EMU was already aware of several warning reports about the danger of the weather situation.

Given the evolution of the situation, he assured that the EMU has launched the two legal mechanisms of action available to it: early warning and advanced deployment. Until 3:59 p.m., the Generalitat receives the request for activation of the emergency unit, but only for the Utiel-Requena area, Robles emphasized.

Following this activation, he assured that at 4:36 p.m. the first troops left and that at 5:35 p.m. they managed to reach the area “with serious difficulties”. Meanwhile, the UME continued to order the enlistment of more units, until 8:36 p.m. when the Generalitat expanded the request for activation of the UME to the entire province of Valencia.

“Almost five hours pass between the moment when the emergency management of the Valencian Community requests the activation of the UEM only for Utiel-Requena and the moment when the activation is requested for the entire province of Valencia”, Robles pointed out. Furthermore, it was revealed that during this period, the EMU commanders themselves informed her that this request for assistance could not be limited to a single area and must be extended to the entire province.

“When they told me that this was going to be requested in the Requena-Utiel area, they told me that it was not possible,” said the minister. “It still took a long time to mobilize the UME just for Utiel-Requena and another five hours to mobilize it throughout the province of Valencia.”

From there, Robles detailed the mobilization of soldiers in the early hours of October 29 and 30 from the bases of Morón, León, Torrejón or Zaragoza and valued the work of the armed forces in the face of criticism. “As soon as they were on the front line, when level 2 was declared, there were already 96 soldiers working in that area,” he insisted.

Civil protection system

Previously, the Minister of Defense also discussed the issue during the control session of Congress, where she insisted that the powers to deal with the crisis caused by DANA belonged to the Valencian Community since the law of national civil protection system indicates that it is up to the regional government to take the necessary measures.

This was answered by Javier Ortega Smith, deputy of Vox, in a parliamentary question to Congress in which he accused Robles of the “lack of soldiers and necessary instruments” for “correct action by the government of Pedro Sánchez”. He also argued that the National Executive should have applied the National Security Lawl to resolve the situation and not “transfer responsibilities to the Valencian government”.

During his speech, Ortega Smith questioned the minister about the few troops assigned to the Valencia tragedy and about the rejection of international aid. Both questions were not answered by the Minister of Defense. “El Salvador provided 300 rescue workers and 20 tons of equipment. The Republic of Argentina proposed moving the White Helmet units. France, 25 firefighters. The United States offered to provide all available assistance. “He didn’t ask for it,” the deputy explained. For this and for “inaction”, Ortega Smith accuses the government of an “omission of its duty to help”.

Thus, the former secretary general of Santiago Abascal’s party has always criticized the lack of agents in the most affected areas. “There are thousands of soldiers on loan and ready to go, but they didn’t let them go. They sent drops on account and late. Mistreated, poorly paid… All this is encompassed by “late action” on the part of Pedro Sánchez’s executive in the face of the situation: “The government acted, but late and with insufficient resources.”

Robles defends the actions of the armed forces and ensures that their coordination and that of the troops there depend on “their commanders”, on the hierarchy itself within the military body. “Everything is controlled. There are military bodies on land, sea and in the air; in addition, psychologists, psychiatrists, 12 helicopters… All with specific command and control, with the sole aim of helping the citizen.

Also the Minister of the Interior

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, also appeared this Wednesday at the Congress of Deputies in another urgent interrogation, this one requested by the Popular Party, to report on the actions carried out on the fateful October 29. The owner supports Robles’ statements and has clashed with popular statements in interpreting how a state of emergency is declared in a self-governing community.

The people’s criticisms focused more on the omission and lack of prevention than on the response once the tragedy occurred. It’s raining in the rain because it’s the same complaint that the PP expressed during the appearance of Ángel Víctor Torres this morning. Despite this, the representative of the Popular Party Carmen Navarro did not hesitate to deploy the string of warnings and negligence that occurred on the day of October 29, when the Júcar Hydrographic Conference, according to her, experienced a period of a few hours during which no reports were reported. on the flow that accumulated in the Poyo ravine and ended up flooding towns like Paiporta.

“Where were you in the previous hours?” Navarro asked the Interior Minister, who replied that he was in the Senate, which he said it should be. He did not want to engage in “provocations” – this is how he described the intervention of the popular deputy – and insisted that “this is not the time to seek political responsibilities “. Marlaska defended his ministry’s action during the key hours of the disaster and insists that the powers to deal with the consequences of DANA belong to the Mazón government “with all the state resources at its disposal.”

But the big struggle has been the interpretation made by the government and the opposition on how the state of emergency was raised to level three. Marlaska insists: “The government of the Valencian Community did not ask for it.” The popular Navarro assured, for his part, that “it is neither obligatory nor binding” for the regional government to ask the Central Executive to apply the measure.

Another very notorious criticism was the retention in office of the operational chief of the police, José Ángel González, through the DANA aid decree, which was used to remove the mandatory retirement at 65 for this position. “They have acquired the Sanchist ‘modus operandi’,” Navarro assured, alluding to an increasingly common practice within the Executive consisting of quietly introducing “unnatural” amendments, as has already happened produced with the law on parity.