In the endless versions that the Generalitat has given about why it did not request the action of the UME before – if it had not offered the troops of the Military Emergency Unit, a statement that was later found to be a lie – on October 29, On the day that the fateful Dana devastated the province of Valencia, there is another fact that adds up. The request sent by the technicians of the Emergency Coordination Center – dependent on the Generalitat – to the state authority to demand the sending of the Armed Forces was done poorly. In the heading of the document, which EL PAÍS has accessed, and sent at 3:29 p.m., the “demobilization” instead of the “mobilization” of the UME was requested. The regional body was notified of the error and sent a new form at 3:41 p.m. In any case, despite the ruling, the UME began to mobilize with the poorly drafted document and before said error was corrected. Furthermore, both letters indicate 3:00 p.m. as the time of the request, when in reality it was formalized more than half an hour later, as stated in the email. And it is noted that the emergency situation is level 2.
In its version of the events, the Generalitat had assured that its request was sent at 3:00 p.m. In any case, said request was limited only to the Utiel Requena region. At that time, the Minister of the Interior and head of Emergencies, Salomé Pradas, had just left the Valencian town of Carlet, as the situation in her municipality was critical. At that point of the day, in addition, the volume of calls from 112 was already critical and Pradas had learned shortly before that in La Alcudia there was already someone missing due to the floods.
It was then that the Cecopi was convened for two hours later, at 5:00 p.m. But the Generalitat did not send the request for UME troops until 8:36 p.m. for the entire province of Valencia. And after 7:00 p.m., the mayor of Paiporta called the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, who was at Cecopi, reporting that her town was flooding. At 7:30 p.m. the president of the Community joined Valencian, Carlos Mazón, after eating with a journalist until 6:00 p.m. at the El Ventorro restaurant.
As stated in the document, the Generalitat classified the dana crisis as a level 2 emergency on the 29th. But, since then, the regional Executive has not raised the level of alert to level 3 either despite the devastating consequences for the ground zero. And although, according to the law, this qualification does not directly imply that the central government has to immediately declare a state of national emergency, which in practice would mean removing management control from Mazón.
The Valencian president continues to contradict the national leadership of his party, because while Mazón refuses to raise the alarm to level 3, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, continues to demand that the Executive of Pedro Sánchez declare a state of national emergency . That line marked by the opposition leader has also been supported by several PP deputies this Wednesday in Congress. “We defend the national emergency, even if it is against Carlos [Mazón] because this crisis exceeds the organic,” say sources from Feijóo’s cabinet.
In the plenary session of the Senate, this Wednesday afternoon, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, claimed not to know if the Valencian Generalitat requested at 3:29 p.m. on the 29th the demobilization of the UME. “Don’t know. I think there was not much order at that time and I prefer to stay with the fact that it still took a long time, almost four in the afternoon, to mobilize the UME just to [la comarca de La Plana de] Utiel-Requena and another five hours for the entire province of Valencia. If that also happened, each one will have to know why they did what they did,” responded the Compromís senator Isabel Moreno. “What we received is that there was a desire for the EMU to be deactivated first thing on Tuesday, but I have not proven it,” he added, reports Miguel González.
