New data continues to appear in dribs and drabs concerning the contradictory versions of what happened last Tuesday, October 29, in the meeting room of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (CECOPI) summoned by DANA which devastated part of the province of Valencia. It is now the Government, through the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which has stressed that it had warned before 5:30 p.m. of the probability of a catastrophe. Rupture of the Forata dam and that the body constituted by the Generalitat took no decision between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on that fateful afternoon.
According to sources in the department led by Third Vice President Teresa Ribera, Cecopi, under the leadership of the Minister of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, did not adopt any measures during its first two hours of office. activity and even suspended the session between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.despite the fact that the hydrological alerts for overflowing of the Poyo ravine, the Magro river, the Júcar river and the Forata dam were already known.
A “very serious” situation, as described by experts from the National Meteorological Agency (Aemet), present throughout the afternoon of Tuesday, where floods swept away dozens of villages and killed 217 people in Valencia. The scale of the events was such that the same sources emphasize that the reasons for the activation of the ES-Alert System They already knew each other before 6 p.m.
According to this version of the facts, Aemet and the Government distinguish three phases in the Cecopi emergency room. The first, from 5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., when the seriousness of the situation began to increase and the probability of a rupture of the Forata dam was even alerted and the expulsion of the population of the region; the second, a one-hour break in the meeting and the third from 7 p.m., when the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, arrived half an hour later.
Around 7:10 p.m., still without the leader of the Regional Executive at the Eliana technical center, discussions began, according to Aemet, on the possibility of launching the ES-Alert alarm to the population and the sending options. a containment message, recommend going to the upper floors of buildings, prohibit traffic or issue recommendations on this subject. Finally, The mass alert was sent out at 8:11 p.m. that day..
Aemet’s clarification comes after President Mazón declared during his appearance at the Valencian Courts that the “imminent” risk Es-Alert was first used in Forata, which was activated after the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, reported from Colombia that the dam was unsafe. -not being able to resist the onslaught of water. Indeed, the “popular” leader declared that he went to Cecopi when he learned that this key infrastructure was in danger.
