The president of the Generalitat Valenciana Carlos Mazon announced a battery of aid to affected citizens and municipalities in an institutional statement after the plenary session of the Consell which met at 7:00 p.m.
Mazón detailed that during this first Extraordinary Council, several extraordinary measures were approved, among them aid of 31,402 million euros that he will ask the government as a first aid package to citizens and municipalities affected by DANA.
The leader of the PP will refer to the Spanish government “136 measurements» in which they demand the participation of the Executive “to rebuild, revive and mitigate the effects of DANA”. These are measures that will have to be financed with state money, depending on how they appear.
Some of the measures detailed by Mazón in his speech are “the request for additional aid to the 6,000 euros announced by the Generalitatwhich complements and reaches up to 15,000 euros in total for those affected by DANA”.
Plus, this raises another “aid of 15,000 euros for the rehabilitation or reconstruction of housingcomplementary to those provided by the Valencian Generalitat”, as well as aid “for the purchase of vehicles for a total amount of 1,464 million to supplement the services of the Insurance Consortium”.
Mazón also requested the payment of dependency allowances and the Valencian Inclusion Income “to help the most vulnerable, as well as an additional double payment for those most affected, for a total of 65 million euros.”
The Consell also requested a help line for the “immediate reconstruction of public infrastructures of 2,687.45 million euros“and another line for the reconstruction of industrial zones and polygons of 7 billion euros“.
Likewise, the Generalitat will request the execution of all works to adapt the channels in order to avoid preventing and anticipating possible future floods guided by amount of 2,200 million euros.
“Its implementation is fundamental and imperative, not only to mitigate material damage, but also to prevent future disasters and guarantee the safety of the population in a recurrent area vulnerable to this type of events,” he said. underlines.
“I do not want to conclude this intervention without addressing expressly and directly to all those citizens of our land who, throughout these bitter days, so difficult and painful for all, They showed the world what we are“, declared the Valencian president.
DANA Management
Mazón’s intervention comes after a day in which the leader of the Consell and the government exchanged criticisms over the management of DANA.
This morning, in interviews in various media, Mazón indicated that the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ), which depends on the Ministry of Ecological Transition, deactivated the overflow danger alert three times last Tuesday (at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.), and declared that the warning message to the population was sent half an hour after this alert was sent to him.
The Confederation denied Mazón through a statement. The public body emphasizes that “its skills do not include the issuance of public alerts in hydrological matters” due to the risks of flooding, but that these “correspond to the emergency services coordinated by the autonomous communities”.
“The hydrographic confederations have an automatic hydrological information network (SAIH) which allows permanent monitoring of flows so that emergency authorities can assess the specific impact on the territory and determine actions to prevent damage”, specifies the press release from the Ministry of Transition. Ecological.
EMU
During his interview, Mazón also referred to the EMU and assured that on Tuesday October 29 at 3:21 p.m., that is, before the “meteorological revolution”, he asked the government to deploy it and stated that he had demanded “all the help he could.”
“The highest command of the UME must have the capacity to call Torrejón and bring in more troops.” “Because the president of the Generalitat does not ask for it“, he stressed. “From the moment EMU is activated, at 3:21 p.m., there is no longer any need for a political petition.”
A few hours later, the head of the UME, Lieutenant General Javier Marcos, appeared at a press conference from La Moncloa and highlighted the autonomous responsibility of the Generalitat Valenciana so that its soldiers can intervene in the areas affected by DANA.
Marcos explained that his soldiers could not enter the emergency zone without authorization from the competent body of the autonomous community given the level 2 emergency.
“I can have a thousand troops at the emergency gate, but I can’t legally enter until the emergency director authorized me,” said the head of the EMU, who acknowledged that his unit did not intervene quickly.
In this regard, the lieutenant colonel argued that he did not intervene quickly because the weather conditions prevented him from doing so and, secondly, for a question of “order and discipline”: “We cannot adding chaos to an absolutely chaotic situation.”
