What did Carlos Mazón do on the day of the DANA?

By now it was already quite scandalous that the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, had not made an appearance at the emergency command centre (Cecopio) on the day of the DANA, 29 October, until 7:30 p.m., a time when entire regions were already flooded. This was the version of events of the Valencian government until now, and Mazón had never bothered to deny it, so everyone assumed that the Valencian president was present at the Cecopio when the alert was sent to mobile phones at 8:11 p.m. However, in the last few hours the doubts about Mazón's actions in those fateful hours have grown even more because the Generalitat, in response to a request from the Catarroja judge who is handling the case, has reported that the president had not yet arrived at the Cecopio at 8:11 p.m. The Generalitat's response, moreover, does not clarify at what time Mazón arrived, which adds even more confusion to the actions of the Valencian president during that tragic day.

It is not clear whether this is a judicial strategy to try to protect himself and shift all responsibility to the then councillor Salomé Pradas, who was legally the one leading the emergency, but in any case this new revelation makes Mazón's position even more unsustainable, who for now has not yet offered a coherent version of his own. Let us remember that Mazón did not alter his agenda until late afternoon despite the red alert that the Aemet had established from early in the morning and that at midday there were already flooded towns such as Utiel. And that he first said that that day he had had a "private meal" and then admitted that he had shared a meal with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana, to whom he offered the direction of À Punt, for almost three hours, until 17.30. From then on, there is a black hole in Mazón's agenda, since although he claims that he went to the Palau de la Generalitat and, after 7 pm, decided to go to the Cecopio, right now it is still not known at what time he arrived or what he did exactly during the previous hours. The call log that he presented on Monday in Madrid is poor: only 16 calls, most of them lasting a few seconds and basically with two people, the councilor Pradas and the president of the Valencia Provincial Council, Vicent Mompó.

The Generalitat had claimed that Mazón had been calling mayors that afternoon, something that has been proven false. In those hours there is only one record of a call to the mayor of Cullera, Jordi Mayor, who explained that the president did not ask him about the DANA and that he seemed to be under the influence of alcohol. Three months after the catastrophe, it is inconceivable that we still do not even know what time the Valencian president arrived at the Cecopio. Mazón is playing cat and rat with the justice system, trying not to take any steps that could incriminate him, without caring about the image of the institutions or, apparently, that of his own party.