The Generlaitat Emergency Coordination Center handled a draft Es-Alert message at 6.37pm. on October 29, 2024, the day of the disaster that caused 229 deaths in the province of Valencia, although the message was finally sent to the population’s cell phones just over an hour and a half later, at 8.11 pm.
This is what we read in the documentation that the General Sub-Directorate of Emergencies sent to the judge of Catarroja who is investigating the management of the dana, after having requested the email sent by the head of the Emergency analysis and monitoring unit, Juan Ramón Cuevas, to the CCE court account regarding the proposed text of Es-Alert.
The documentation includes an image of the email sent, which shows that it was sent at 6.37pm. with the subject “es alert”, as well as the content of the attached document, which contains the following message proposal to mobile phones: “Given the situations resulting from the heavy rains in your area, as a preventative measure, stay in your homes and pay attention to future communications through this channel and official sources”. This draft message responds to concerns about the breach of the Forata dam in the Magro river basin.
The judge of the Dana criminal case, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, declared during the investigation, in which she collected the testimonies of more than 350 people, that the final sending of the Es-Alet in 2011 was “late”2 and of “wrong” content because it did not warn the population to seek safety at high altitude, but rather to avoid “any type of movement in the province of Valencia”. This message had already been sent from Forata and the rest of the basins of the province, including that of the Poyo ravine, whose overflow caused the death of 193 people out of the 229 who died, according to an analysis carried out by this newspaper on the basis of official and summary data.
Video by Pradas and Mazón
On the other hand, a popular accusation in the criminal case on the management of the dana asked that a video be included in which the then Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, accused, is heard commenting to the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, after arriving at the Cecopi at 8.28 pm, that it was a “meteorological explosion” that occurred “everywhere”.
According to Acció Cultural in its request, the video appears in the documentary that the RTVE regional center broadcast on October 29 entitled “Cecopi: les hores crítiques”, with fragments of a video and audio sequence recorded by the public radio and television station À Punt and that, according to this popular accusation, “there is no evidence” that the Valencian network has referred it to the court of Catarroja. In the video, Pradas, one of the suspects, is heard telling Mazón: “It’s an explosion, a meteorological explosion never seen in years. That’s the word. It’s an explosion. There were also tornadoes. When I was in Carlet there was a tornado (…). But everywhere. In Chiva, in Utiel… In Utiel they can’t access it, they don’t know what’s there. Not even the EMU.”
In the document of this popular accusation there is the transcription of the audio of that video shot which, “except for errors or omissions, is not registered as having been sent” to the court, in which the president’s press chief, Maite Gómez, is heard for the first time asking Pradas and Mazón to give them “a moment, please, they are talking”.
Subsequently, Pradas informs him of the “meteorological explosion” and insists that “not even the EMU can enter Utiel,” to which Mazón says he will call the Government delegate to the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé.
Furthermore, the director of the Valencian Society for the Integrated Management of Emergency Services (SGISE), Raúl Quílez, states: “The problem is that we are going through a moment of uncertainty in which we don’t really know what is out there”, to which Mazón states: “I am without coverage! I don’t understand it!” and Pradas explains that “the network has fallen”.
