The Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has ensured this Saturday to alert citizens of the risk of floods on the morning of October 29, when President Carlos Mazón kept his agenda and had lunch in a booth at a well-known restaurant in Valencia. until 6:00 p.m. With this version, the public body refutes the version of Mazón himself, who in his appearance this Friday in the Valencian Cortes discharged all responsibility for the management of the catastrophe – which has already left 216 dead – in organizations such as the Aemet or the Confederation. Júcar Hydrographic, responsible for the dams.
The Integrated Operational Coordination Center (CECOPI) —― knew in advance of the serious hydrological situation that affected the Forata Dam, according to sources from Aemet itself, who point out that a massive alert could have been sent to the population two hours before that the brutal flood occurred. The Cecopi was directed by the Minister of the Interior and political leader of Emergencies of the Generalitat, Salomé Pradas, of the PP, who is expected to be relieved of her position next Monday.
Specifically, the CECOPI was warned at 5:33 p.m. of a possible scenario of failure of the Forata dam, an infrastructure that at that time was at risk level 2, as indicated by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. Aemet sources, for their part, have indicated this Saturday that in the following two hours (5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.), with the information already in hand, no decision was made. And it was not until 7:45 p.m. when CECOPI reported that it was possible that the situation in Forata would worsen. For this reason, according to the same sources, the Valencian Government decided to use the mass mobile alert through the ES-Alert system.
Aemet sources have also spoken out about the accusations that President Mazón made this Friday about José Ángel Núñez, the organization’s head of climatology. In his long appearance, Mazón directly cited the Valencian coach to justify the late decision-making. According to Mazón, Núñez explained on Valencian television that the dana was “a situation that was moving north and that the red alert would end at six in the afternoon.” The same Aemet sources have indicated that this statement has been “taken out of context” and have specified that the warnings issued by the meteorological agency are continually reviewed and that, at no time, was there no longer a red warning on the afternoon of October 29.
The Aemet has also defended that at no time did the organization indicate that the accumulated rainfall in some areas would reach a maximum of 180 liters per square meter. This, in response to the statements of Mazón, who said so during his appearance on Friday. According to Aemet, the word “maximum” was never in the bulletin.
