The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, highlighted Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) as responsible for the lack of information that prevented a rapid response to the October 29 DANA, which led to the worst natural disaster in decades.
After recognizing some of his own failures and leaving gaps in his account of events, Mazón severely criticized, as insufficient and late, the communications that the state agency, dependent on the Ministry of Ecological Transition led by Teresa Ribera, has sent to the Generalitat. A “two and a half hour news break” which, according to him, was essential to warn the population of the overflowing of the Poyo ravine.
This is how the regional baron of the PP expressed this Friday during his appearance at his own request before the Valencian Cortes to detail his management of the historic flood which devastated dozens of municipalities in the province of Valencia. 216 people died and 16 are still missing.
The monographic session, attended by popular leaders at the national level, began with a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the tragedy. Dozens of people gathered at the gates of the parliamentary headquarters demand Mazón’s resignationwhich does not appear on the roadmap of the president, who plans to announce in the coming hours the overhaul of his government.
In his first intervention without time limit, Mazón thanked the solidarity of all of Spain and the work of the troops and volunteers deployed at Ground Zero, as well as that of the mayors of the affected municipalities. In this sense, he demanded “great vision and great responsibility” from all administrations in the face of a situation from which we must “learn lessons”.
It is for this reason that the PP will present a petition to create a parliamentary commission of inquiry in the Valencian Cortes and hopes that this will also be done in the Cortes Générales. “I’m not going to deny the failures. This is neither possible nor useful. “We are self-critical. There are things that were not done well,” he stressed.
However, he clarified that “we do not have enough information in time”, since the sudden flooding of the Poyo ravine took away the only sensor that the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) had in Riba-roja de Túria. Furthermore, he stressed that the National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) launched the alert “because of torrential rains” and not because of the “monstrous ravine which exceeded forecasts”. Carlos Mazón apologized because the response capacity of the protocols “was not sufficient” in the face of the “unprecedented” situation, which showed that the measurement and alert systems “have cracks.”
The Valencian president defended that 112 was informing citizens on social networks and in communications with the media since Sunday 27 of the warnings that were activated and the recommendations that they should take into account. Also Tuesday, October 29, the day of the disaster, first thing in the morning.
“No emergency manager from the Generalitat Valenciana was summoned” to the meeting that took place that morning at the Government Delegation, Mazón said, even though there were already rail cuts and “300 trucks were blocked on the A-7″.
“I did not delay the tasks that were completed”
The head of the regional Executive reported that Aemet had indicated that the red notice would be deactivated at 6 p.m., which ultimately did not happen, to justify his statements today in which he criticized DANA. He admitted it was a “mistake” and that the video was removed from his social media because the information had become “outdated.” Likewise, he maintained that he maintained his agenda thinking that the resources were ready in the face of the predicted cold fall and went to the Eliana Emergency Coordination Center when he was warned that the The situation at the Forata dam was getting worse, even though traffic jams “lengthened the journey”. “There was no need for anyone to inform me nor did I delay ongoing tasks,” he said, without giving further details about his whereabouts at key moments.
On October 29 at noon, with information from the CHJ, Emergencies moved the hydrological alert to the municipalities of the flooding of the Magro River and the Poyo Ravine. Subsequently, the Confederation sent three emails indicating “consecutive declines” on the boulevard, the last at 4:13 p.m. Despite this, Mazón said, the Minister of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, convened the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) at 5 p.m.
The next communication came at 6:43 p.m., warning that the flow of Poyo Ravine had skyrocketed from 28 to 1,686 cubic meters per second. “This is sent in a simple email,” he criticized, without appeal or warning about “the catastrophic consequences”. “The most striking thing,” he insisted, is that The representatives of the Confederation were in Cecopi and “no one said anything”.
Mazón added that the Hydrographic Confederation had the regulatory obligation and competence to warn of the risk of overflowing ravines. “fragmented, inaccurate and late” information. She also insisted that some of her measures “disappeared” from her website.
All eyes were then on the possible rupture of the Forata dam, which is why, “given the seriousness of the situation”, Cecopi sent the mass ES-Alert alert message to cell phones at 8:14 p.m. . Around nine in the evening, he contacted the vice president of the government, María Jesús Montero, who told him that the resources were at his disposal. The Confederation reported shortly after that the dam had held up and there was no risk of collapse.
Concerning the reconstruction, Carlos Mazón once again affirmed 31 billion euros to the central government to repair the damageas well as European funds. Beyond the aid to the affected families, the damage in Metrovalencia has been estimated at ninety million euros, while that suffered in the industrial zones will amount to 10.9 billion.
