The journalist Marco Presa, advisor to the former Minister of Justice and the Interior of the Valencian Generalitat Salomé Pradas, revealed this Friday before the judge investigating the damage, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, that the sending of the Es-Alert – the mass message to cell phones – had been put on the table on the day of the storm at 5pm, more than three hours before it was sent, according to what sources present at his appearance told EL PAÍS. “Since Cecopi (the body convened by the Generalitat to coordinate the crisis in L’Eliana, Valencia) began, messages have been heard,” Presa revealed in court.
Sending the alert focuses Judge Ruiz Tobarra’s investigations. The magistrate claims that if it had been reported earlier, lives would have been saved. The notification was sent to phones at 8.11pm, when most of the missing people were already dead. The former Pradas advisor also assured the instructor that the former councilorthe main suspect in the case “played an active role” in managing the flood which caused 229 deaths on 29 October 2024.
Presa’s statement, according to which when he has to appear as a witness he has the obligation to tell the truth, contradicts the testimony of the former councilor, who last April claimed in court – where she was cited as an accused – that she had not directed anything and that she had passed her responsibility on the technicians. “TO advisor You could see him talking a lot, he had a notebook where he wrote down absolutely everything. He doesn’t know what they were talking about. Pradas played an active role. He asked and asked. He always played such a role in all meetings,” the former councilor said.
The witness recounted how the hours of tension in Cecopi were experienced, which began at 5pm, ten hours after the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) had declared the red alert, the highest on the scale, due to the heavy rain. “You (Pradas) don’t remember there being any mention of deaths until after the alerts were over,” he commented. He has already explained that he does not remember the controversy over the retreat of the firefighters from the Poyo ravine – the genesis of the tragedy – who left at 3pm, less than two hours before this avenue overflowed at the height of cities such as Chiva or Cheste.
Presa stated that he learned at 6.59 pm. on the possibility of the Forata dam breaking, in the Valencian municipality of Yátova (2,242 inhabitants), which could have caused 8,000 deaths. And he referred to the “disconnections” of Cecopi, shaded in black, which some of the 29 participants – representatives of municipal, regional and state organizations – suffered at the meeting, such as the government delegate in Valencia, the socialist Pilar Bernabé. “I know there was a disconnect with the telematics workers (sic). The screen was always on. There were breaks. (…) There was a total disconnect, they took breaks,” he indicated.
