Aurora Roca, press manager of the Emergencies of the Generalitat Valenciana, explained on Tuesday before the judge of Catarroja (Valencia) who investigates the damage, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, that the professionals who coordinated the crisis were aware at all times of the extent of the catastrophe that caused 229 deaths in Valencia on 29 October 2024. “We knew we were in an extraordinary situation”, said the journalist, who reported the Cecopi tragedy, the body convened by the Generalitat in L’Eliana (Valencia) which coordinated the crisis, according to what sources present at his appearance told EL PAÍS.
“In the Cecopi room there were no televisions, but everyone had a cell phone. I don’t think we were in a bubble. We knew what was happening. That’s why we were there, to apply measures to what was happening,” he said in court.
Roca’s statement – according to which when she appeared as a witness she was forced to tell the truth – debunks the information blackout theory put forward by the Council of the interim president, Carlos Mazón; for PP; and from the environment of the two defendants: the former Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas; and who was his second during the flood, Emilio Argüeso. His thesis argued that if the Generalitat did not quickly address the crisis, it was because state organizations such as the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) did not signal the extent of the tragedy early enough.
The witness revealed that at 5pm on the day of the storm, the deputy director general of Emergencies of the Generalitat, Jorge Suárez, suggested the possibility of sending a mass message to mobile phones to inform the population of the extent of the storm. “Around 5pm, Suárez proposes it (…). After 6pm, he puts it on the table. Before the break, we say: we will send and the break is over”, he indicated, referring to the digital disconnections recorded by the members of Cecopi who connected via Zoom to the management of the crisis, such as the government delegate in the Valencian Community, the socialist Pilar Bernabé. “We were evaluating the risk of flooding of the Magro river. We were thinking about the message that could be given”, he expressed.
Roca, denounced by Argüeso for not having reported what was happening outside Cecopi, acknowledged before the judge that a week before the catastrophe they had already considered the possible extent of the crisis. “From the 27th or the previous week, an adverse episode had already spread, although subsequently confirmed alarms were not declared. We saw that there was a cold fall forecast which usually arouses interest in the news,” he indicated.
The witness explained that former councilor Pradas had gone out to make some phone calls. “I don’t know who was calling. I didn’t witness any communication with President Mazón,” he said.
When questioned about the recording of the Cecopi meeting – which was attended by 29 representatives of state, regional and municipal institutions – the journalist admitted that the meeting in which a crucial decision was made: the sending of the mass message on cell phones was not recorded. A key measure that became the focus of the investigations. If this text had been sent earlier, according to the magistrate, lives would have been saved. The last notification was sent at 8.11pm, when most of the missing were already dead.
In his speech, the Emergency press officer underlined that on the eve of Dana a press release was sent to denounce the heavy rains. And he placed Pradas as the leader who coordinated the Cecopi meeting. “You gave the floor. (…) You recommended giving information to the press”, he specified. In his judicial declaration as an investigator last April, the former councilor assured: “I didn’t direct anything.”
Sources close to the former manager, dismissed by Mazón four weeks after the incident, maintain that Roca’s appearance corroborates the thesis of the main suspects. «The Es alarm (mass message to cell phones) is launched from the Forata dam», they claim, alluding to the risk that existed, starting from 6pm. on October 29, that this infrastructure would fail, which could cause 8,000 deaths.
