A negligence of many, a tragedy that could have been avoided

In order to hold exclusively responsible Carlos Mazón of the deaths caused by the Valencia damage, Pedro Sanchez He stated last Saturday that “one person’s negligence caused a real tragedy.”

But, contrary to what the president falsely alleges, the year that has passed since the deadly flood shows that It was a tragedy resulting from the negligence of many.

And the greatest of them is attributable to those who did not carry out the hydraulic protection works that were planned and that could have mitigated the impact of the floods.

Nothing else can be deduced from the comparative statistics: at least 200 deaths, almost 90% of those that occurred on October 29, 2024, occurred due to the flooding of the Poyo basin.

That is, the only one of the three that suffered colossal floods of water that lacked the channeling and drainage solution to protect the population.

As the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) has acknowledged to EL ESPAÑOL at the request of Transparency, an investment of only 228 million would have been enough to avoid the catastrophe. A project that paralyzed the current socialist government in 2021 “due to lack of budget availability and environmental problems”, as admitted in September of that year by the CHJ, dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition of the then minister Teresa Ribera.

In fact, The second greatest responsibility for not avoiding the accident corresponds to the CHJ itself.

Because, as EL ESPAÑOL revealed, the body in charge of monitoring the basins omitted 15 alerts about the flow of the Poyo ravine during the key hour and a half of the flood. And therefore it failed to comply with its internal protocols, which establish that any flood greater than 150 m3/s must be communicated via email to the Emergency Center.

The CHJ admitted in the documentation that it sent to the judge investigating the damage that it detected “a sudden increase in flow starting at 5:40 p.m.” in the Poyo ravine. However, he did not inform the Generalitat by mail until 6:43 p.m., when many deaths had already occurred in the flooded towns.

And the third place in the order of attribution of blame is the lack of diligence attributable to Carlos Mazón.

The way in which the president of the Generalitat Valenciana reported his movements that afternoon is absolutely reprehensible.having offered successive contradictory versions about the “working lunch” that lasted for hours on a day in which emergencies were already mobilized due to the weather alert, and while Cecopi had been meeting since 5 p.m.

It is true that Mazón did not have elements of judgment that corresponded to the magnitude of the historic storm that ended up devastating the Huerta Sur. But also that Mazón demonstrated that he did not have sound criteria when it came to correctly evaluating the risk. Especially when, despite the CHJ’s information blackout, Cecopi did have a compelling source of information: the flood of calls to its 112 service reporting dramatic situations.

In that sense, the testimony of the journalist with whom he ate that day, ordered last week by the Valencia Court for next November 3, will be of vital interest.

Because, as the magistrates have indicated in that order, carrying out these procedures regarding food in El Ventorro can serve to “find out the information available to each of the members” of Cecopi. Because “it could not be ruled out that the witness listened to what the president of the Generalitat said when communicating by telephone with the then councilor (Salome Pradas), or comments that the president could make as a result of said conversations.

And Maribel Villaplana corroborates, as he stated in his open letter, that Mazón did not convey “any concerns regarding” the emergency that his team was managing, the thesis that Mazón was not being informed of the true seriousness of what was happening. Otherwise, it is reasonable to think that he would have immediately left the restaurant.

In any case, Mazón’s recklessness has more to do with the lack of transparency, and with the betrayal of the trust that a ruler obliged to account for his actions must transmit, than with the direct responsibility that he could have in the tragedy.

Focusing, as the Government is doing, all the blame on the president of the Generalitat is nothing more than a politically motivated hunt to collect the reward of a Mazón who has behaved clumsily.

With this communication strategy, The Government tries to provide itself with an alibi to cover up its own dereliction of functions. Not only that which corresponded to the prevention of the catastrophe, but also in the repair work.

Because the central government is not providing the slightest support to the reconstruction plan of the Valencian executive.

The president has hardly any dialogue with his Valencian counterpart, and his Executive continues to resist participating in a mixed commission with the Generalitat in which both administrations coordinate the reconstruction, as would be required.

It is unacceptable that the Generalitat is forced to resort to private financing because the Government is withholding the injection of an additional Autonomous Liquidity Fund to cover the extraordinary expenses derived from the emergency.

Nor is it true that only 35% of the millions mobilized by the Government correspond to direct aid to those affected, which represents only 17% of the total that Sánchez promised to disburse.

The state funeral being held today requires mourning for the victims who lost their lives in the greatest catastrophe in the recent history of Spain.

But this same spirit of national harmony must continue in overcoming political tactics and committing to loyal and active collaboration between the competent authorities to return normality to the hundreds of Valencians who a year later still cannot recover their lives.