An employee of 112 – the telephone switchboard of the Generalitat Valenciana – dismantled the theory of the information blackout this Monday before the judge of Catarroja (Valencia) who is investigating the woman, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra. A thesis, vehemently aired by the Consell and the PP for a year, according to which if the regional administration did not act earlier and better in managing the tragedy it is because state organizations, such as the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (Chj) or the State Meteorological Agency, did not communicate in advance the extent of the waterspout that caused 229 deaths on October 29, 2024 in Valencia.
Néstor García, 112 supervisor, told the instructor that the flow of calls from the switchboard – which received almost 20,000 communications on the day of the catastrophe – served as a thermometer of the evolution of the damage. And that the two former senior officials of the Generalitat under investigation – the former Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas, and her deputy during the flood, Emilio Argüeso – were aware of the risk of the Poyo ravine, the cause of the misfortune, after having visited the emergency building in L’Eliana (Valencia) after 1pm on the day of the flood, as sources present in their communicated.
Jorge Suárez, deputy director of Emergencies of the Generalitat, was also aware of this danger at that time, according to García, who, when he had to appear as a witness, had the obligation to tell the truth.
García’s story coincides with the new videos that contributed to the investigation and which were recorded by Emergencies in the 112 building. The images show employees of Ilunion, the company that manages the switchboard, telling Pradas about the problems of the rain that fell in the morning. The former councilor, according to the video, is referring to Poyo, after the declarations of hydrological alert in this avenue and in the Magro river.
The witness explained that that morning they received calls for help from areas where it was not raining, such as Aldaia or Quart de Poblet.
Starting at 4.40pm, 112 received dozens of calls from municipalities such as Chiva and Cheste, where the Poyo ravine begins. Despite this information, the Generalitat sent the mass message on mobile phones to inform the population of the extent of the storm only at 8.11pm, when most of the missing were already dead. The judge believes that if this notification had been sent earlier, lives would have been saved. And he placed the message, known as Es Alert, at the center of his investigations, which now amount to more than 42 summary volumes.
