Three representatives of official bodies and a minister came out this Saturday to deny various episodes of the story that for two and a half hours the President of the Valencian Government, Carlos Mazón, used in the Cortes to try to avoid his responsibilities after his management disastrous during the DANA that on October 29, it caused more than 200 deaths in Valencia.
One of the arguments most repeated by Mazón is the alleged information failure that occurred by the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) between 4:13 p.m. and 6:43 p.m. regarding the Poyo ravine. As elDiario.es argues, the 62 notices that the CHJ sent to the Emergency Department of the Generalitat between 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., when Mazón was absent from the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi), demonstrate that this assertion is false. Of the 62 emails sent, eight concerned the ravine.
This Saturday evening, Mazón responded to the statements of the Ministry of Ecological Transition (Miteco), but in his attempt to discredit it, he contradicted a statement published a few minutes earlier by his own Ministry of Justice.
Marlaska’s denial
In this sense, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, denied this Saturday that there was, on October 29, any “information blackout” on the part of the government concerning the flood from the Poyo ravine, as Mazón assured.
“There were all, there were all the necessary and precise alerts and permanently. It was a permanent communication and, obviously, at no time during this period was there a power outage, but rather timely, necessary and precise information that continued over time.” declared the minister after the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi), at the Emergency Center of the Generalitat, which coordinates the repair work of the damage caused by DANA.
The denial of EMU
Although on this occasion Mazón did not refer to the UME in his Friday speech to the Corts, the PP deputy and former Valencian president Alberto Fabra, on November 13, during the plenary session of the Congress, criticized to the minister that, “just as in other tragedies”, such as the earthquake in Morocco, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) was not “present” from the first moment, because it considers that the military deployed “late” to the cities most affected by DANA.
This Saturday, the general head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Javier Marcos, assured that his troops began deploying in the province of Valencia on October 29 at 3:41 p.m., “hours before receiving the orders officials. that “the situation was becoming downright difficult” due to the flooding that was beginning to occur due to the deadly DANA.
During a press conference at the Moncloa Palace, Marcos released some images to support the thesis that the UME was in the zone “from the first minute.” “Although we knew before that the situation was getting worse, at two o’clock in the afternoon we learned that the Valencian Community had decreed operational situation 1. We had already been alerted for hours and, as soon as we noticed that the situation becomes frankly difficult, much sooner from any elevation to another level we leave,” he said.
He assures that the first UME vehicle left the Bétera base “at 3:41 p.m. and that it took almost two hours to arrive in Chiva”. “It is said that the truth suffers, but does not perish,” the general proclaimed, stressing that the soldiers who performed “heroic acts” to save people during this journey “do not deserve the information we have” . “There are sectors of the population for which we arrived late, but we participated in these rescues,” Marcos emphasized.
Aemet’s denial
The National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) clarified this Saturday that a report was published at 7:36 a.m. on October 29, DANA day, in which it warned of precipitation of 180 liters per square meter (l/m2) in the areas of Valencia in 12. hours, an amount that indicated a threshold that could be exceeded but not a maximum level of rain, according to sources from this public body.
In this same meteorological report, an explanatory note was included which assured that, in addition, this accumulation could occur within two or three hours, forecasts which led Aemet to activate the red rain warning, according to sources from the entity.
This is clarified after the “president” of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, affirmed this Friday, during his appearance at the Corts to explain the management of DANA, that “Aemet’s forecasts, as indicated in its official part, sent an Emergency at 07:36 in the morning, establishes a maximum rain probability of 70% in different areas of the province of Valencia and a maximum precipitation of 180 l/m2 in 12 hours.
Aemet pointed out that in the aforementioned report – valid until midnight on October 30 – there is no reference to a maximum rainfall, since these documents always reflect thresholds that can be reached or exceeded. Furthermore, in a subsequent bulletin, sent at 9:41 a.m., the red notice is extended to practically the entire province of Valencia and specifically refers to a threshold of 180 l/m2.
In his speech on Friday, Mazón insisted that Aemet was only warning of forecasts of “torrential rains”, but not “flash floods”. In relation to the accusations made by the president, the agency emphasizes that the surveillance of ravines and river beds does not fall within its competence. In addition, they add that this institution is responsible for warning, and not warning, of the consequences that the events they warn about could lead to. However, they also distance themselves from Mazón’s words that placed the storm in the Serranía de Cuenca. They claim that no one made this prediction.
Denial of Miteco
One of the most blatant lies launched by Mazón this Friday in the Corts, as denounced this Saturday by the Ministry of Ecological Transition led by Teresa Ribera, is the one that refers to the moment of his transfer to the Integrated Coordination Center operational: “When I was warned that the situation at the Forata dam was getting worse, I went to the Emergency Coordination Center where Cecopi was established and working. Around 7:45 p.m., in Cecopi, the Confederation reported that the situation in Forata could worsen,” Mazón said on Friday.
However, Miteco sources assured that at 5:26 p.m. Cecopi was already talking about the critical situation of the Forata dam and was beginning to consider taking action. At 5:36 p.m., there was already talk of the possible rupture of the reservoir, with Mazón nowhere to be found and in the middle of lunch with a Valencian journalist at the Ventorro restaurant.
The Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) did not make any decisions between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on October 29 and interrupted the meeting from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Miteco sources point out that between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. hydrological alerts had already been activated due to the overflow of the Poyo ravine, the Magro river, the Júcar river and the Forata dam, as it was known that the situation was very severe.
Mazon’s response
After all this chain reaction, Mazón published the following message on his social networks at 7:56 p.m.: “The new argument from the Ministry of Ecological Transition is worrying. It is said that Cecopi, whose steering committee includes the Spanish government, which had the full capacity to take command at any time, already knew at 5:30 p.m. that there was a risk of the dam bursting which threatened the lives of 80,000 people. and yet, even if they were able to act, they did absolutely nothing for 3 hours under the pretext of waiting for the president of the Generalitat, who is not even part of Cecopi and is not necessary to make any decision executive.
The president then adds that there are two options: “Either his argument is false and everyone at CECOPI worked on the basis of the information available to them (which ended at 8 p.m. with the call from the secretary of State saying it could not guarantee that the dam would resist, at which point the alert was sent); either the Government knew since 5:30 p.m. that the dam could break without doing anything to alert the population even though they had the capacity to do so.
This argument clashes with a press release published in a report from the Ministry of Justice, according to which, “from 6 p.m., Cecopi was managing the situation at the Forata dam. From the Emergencies, the notice was sent to the municipalities affected by the possible failure of the dam and fluid contact was maintained with the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar, analyzing the evolution of the Forata dam and predicting the scenarios that could arise.
