“The President of the Generalitat made decisions based on real-time information provided by the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ). And when there is a period of significant information blackout, more than two hours, crucial for decision-making, you will understand that it does not seem fair to me to want to transfer responsibilities to those who were simply taking decisions on the basis of information which is the responsibility of others.” The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, spoke in these terms this Wednesday, November 13, to argue the delay in sending the alert to the population October 29 at 8:12 p.m., while the majority of the populations of l’Horta South of València were flooded and thousands of people were trapped due to the DANA, which claimed the lives of more than 200 people that day.
The period of so-called information blackout, as most popularly claimed, took place between 4:13 p.m. and 6:43 p.m. According to their argument, in this impasse, they would not have received any communication from the CHJ despite the sudden increase in the flow of the Poyo ravine which was subsequently recorded and which caused the disaster.
This statement is clearly false, according to the 194 emails containing different notices and alerts sent by the CHJ, an organization dependent on the Ministry of Ecological Transition led by Minister and Vice-President Teresa Ribera, to which elDiario.es had access. Throughout the day of August 29, numerous other notices were sent from the CHJ to the Civil Protection, in addition to the two key emails of 4:37 p.m. and 4:50 p.m., advanced by this newspaper with which the Civil Protection of the Generalitat was informed. was informed of increased precipitation in Chiva – at the head of the Poyo ravine – exceeding the thresholds of the rain gauge installed in the city, which resulted in the automatic sending of notifications.
Concretely, only between 2:30 p.m., when President Carlos Mazón attended a meal during which he offered the direction of public television to a Valencian journalist, until his arrival at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi). Around 30 p.m., the Emergency Coordination Center (CCE) of the Generalitat received a total of 62 notices from the Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH) of the Confederation. These are different situations linked to DANA, such as exceeding flow and rain gauge thresholds. When these limits are exceeded, the system automatically generates a notice which is sent to the CCE, where Civil Protection is located.
Regarding the Poyo ravine, out of the 62 warnings, there were new information emails at 4:57 p.m. and 5:02 p.m. on the Poyo rambla in Riba-Roja, at 5:27 p.m. due to precipitation in Chiva and at 5:00 p.m. . :57h still on the Poyo ravine in Riba-Roja. At 6:43 p.m., the Confederation sent the last warning through the sensor located in the ravine, near Riba-roja, which was already recording 1,686 cubic meters per second, which caused the force of the water to drive the measuring system and however, the alert was not sent to citizens until an hour and a half later.
As for the other critical point, that of the Forata dam, a first alert appeared at 3:54 p.m.; another at 4:52 p.m. warning of the activation of scenario 1; one more at 4:56 p.m. where there was an exit alert in the reservoir; and later, at 5:04 p.m., scenario 2 is declared. Also at 5:23 p.m., 5:54 p.m. and 6:33 p.m., new alerts arise due to a flow.
All these notifications, as well as others related to other flows and rain gauges, were recorded during the absence of Mazón in Cecopi, established at 5 p.m., despite the fact that the National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) issued the red level warning at 5 p.m. 07:36 on the morning of October 29 and maintained it throughout the day and that the CHJ reported the collapse of the Poyo ravine at 12:07 (although it is true that the decrease in flow was subsequently reported on three occasions ), which gave rise to an alert from the CCE at 12:20 p.m. which remained active all day.
President Mazón plans to give explanations on all these situations this Friday from 11:30 a.m. in the Corts Valencianes. The Valencian president is then expected to draw the lines of a new executive, in an attempt to establish a firewall for those calling for his resignation. Mazón wants to open a new scene and changing the pieces is the key.
The Generalitat insists on the responsibility of the CHJ
Ultimately, the Generalitat Valenciana issued a statement in which it insisted on clarifying the powers that correspond to the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) and the State Meteorological Agency in response “to statements with inaccurate references and imprecise statements from the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who assured that there was no lack of information, but rather direct communication between the CHJ and the Generalitat Valenciana.
The Generalitat wishes to remind the Minister of the Interior that “the different types of communications sent by the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar through its Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH) refer to data on the intensity of precipitation (obtained at from rain gauges) and flow monitoring data in rivers, reservoirs, ravines, regulating systems and flood zones. In this sense, “the CHJ has the obligation to inform the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat of the relevant flow increases that occur in the rivers and ravines of their respective basins”.
Furthermore, the Generalitat emphasizes that “the CHJ is part of the Risk Monitoring Group of the Cecopi Advisory Committee and, therefore, in addition to its informative function, it also assesses the situation of risk of overflow in the river basins and advises the steering committee on the protective measures they are considering.
In the opinion of the Generalitat, “it is totally inappropriate to assert that with the data from a rain gauge located in Chiva or on the Rambla del Poyo in Riba-roja, the Emergency Center should have assumed what flow was going to travel along the river. Rambla del Poyo. Proposing or suggesting this reflects a profound misunderstanding of the hydraulic functioning of a hydrographic basin, or an attempt to confuse public opinion by trying to justify and hide the fact that for two and a half hours, the CHJ, between 4: On October 29, at 1 p.m. and 6:43 p.m., did not inform the Emergency Department of the evolution of the flow of the Poyo ravine, despite the fact that the warning of the risk of overflow was his obligation and the form of his functions and skills. »
The Valencian Government insists that the CHJ sent “no notification of increased flow in the Poyo ravine between 4:13 p.m. and 6:43 p.m. on October 29, which was confirmed by the basin body itself. During this flow information outage on Rambla de Poyo for two and a half hours, the flow increased from 28.7 m3/s to 1,686 m3/s. Or what is the same: at 4:13 p.m., 280,000 liters of water per second crossed the ravine, and two and a half hours later, hours during which the CHJ did not inform the Emergencies of this circumstance, 1,686,000 liters of The water was already falling water per second into the ravine.
