Moncloa criticizes Mazón for overlooking his own mistakes

However, the central government did not alert the Generalitat Valenciana of the extreme risk that this DANA implied and He only met his crisis committee on Tuesday eveningwhile thousands of people were already trapped by rising waters in their vehicles, homes or businesses.

As the hours passed, on this tragic day of Tuesday, the government did not issue any warning to prevent the movement of vehicles towards Valencia, until it was too late.

The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazonreceived this Thursday at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) first the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, then the president Pedro Sanchezwhom he thanked for not delaying in visiting the region to offer Government assistance.

In statements to the media, Feijóo criticized the government for not informing him of the situation in the affected regions and regretted the “loneliness” with which Regional presidents had to face the drama.

“A regional president manages according to the information he receives,” Feijóo explained to journalists, specifying that part of this information comes from state bodies such as “Aemet, which reports forecasts and times of precipitation, and the Hydrographic Confederation, which has exclusive jurisdiction over canals and the hydraulic management of rivers.

A few minutes later, the Ministry of Ecological Transition, led by Teresa Ribera, published a three-page statement to emphasize the responsibility of the autonomous communities and dismantle Feijóo’s arguments.

The press release indicates that Aemet had been reporting the proximity of a “cold drop” phenomenon since Thursday October 24 and, already on Tuesday October 29 at 7:31 a.m., lifted its “red notice” alertwith particular risk in the Valencian Community.

“The danger assessment of an alert corresponds to the regional administrationssince the specific risk analysis must be adapted to multiple factors (territorial, urban, orographic, etc.)”, declares the ministry of Teresa Ribera in this regard.

“What Aemet or the hydrographic confederations cannot under any circumstances do”, specifies the ministry press release, “is take risk management decisions which fall under Civil Protection”.

And he emphasizes that “the impact of a meteorological phenomenon depends on the preparation to face it and the evaluation and the measures adopted by the autonomous communities“.

The Ministry of Ecological Transition thus places all responsibility for managing the crisis on the Generalitat Valenciana, which has already caused more than 150 deaths.

Likewise, the Ministry of the Interior, led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, issued another statement on Thursday in which it emphasizes that the activation and management territorial Civil Protection plans In the event of an emergency, it falls under the “exclusive responsibility” of the regional authorities, which are “those competent in the matter according to the provisions of the legislation in force”.

Already on Wednesday afternoon, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, assured during a press conference that his department had only received on Tuesday at 8:36 p.m. the request for intervention from the Generalitat Valenciana for the intervention of the Military Emergency Unit (UME). ).

However, the government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé (from the same party as the minister), reported on Tuesday at 3:21 p.m. on social networks (almost five hours earlier than the minister claimed) that the Generalitat had requested to activate the presence of the EMU.

“On the part of the Spanish government, we are responding to the request and collaborating with it in the face of the emergency caused by DANA in Utiel,” Bernabé reported.

As the political controversy intensified, the mayor of Alfafar, Juan Ramon Adsuaralaunched a dramatic appeal: “They have forgotten us”, he denounced, “we have not seen a fire truck, nor the Civil Guard, nor the EMU for days. Nobody comes here” .

“There are people who live with corpses in their homesit’s very sad. We have not seen any emergency vehicles from any institution, we only have the Local Police and a Regional Police patrol,” lamented the councilor.

Finally, shortly after five in the afternoon, Carlos Mazón announced that he had asked the government to “the available troops of the Army, Sea and Air“participate” in logistical tasks and the distribution of aid to the population.

A group of radical left associations, led by Acció Cultural del País Valencià (ACPV), have called a demonstration on Saturday, November 9 at 6 p.m. in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento de Valencia, to demand Mazón’s resignation. emergency management.

Entities such as Arran (Youth CUP)the CNT union and the Coordinator of the Democratic Memory Associations of the Valencian Country.