Key statement from the Confederation's president on DANA: "I proposed sending the alert more than two hours earlier."

ValenciaThe president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHX), Miguel Polo, stated this Friday before Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, who is investigating the criminal case into the management of the DANA (National Hydrographic Confederation of the Júcar River). He stated that before the first long break in the Cecopio meeting (the strike occurred at 6:00 p.m.), he had already asked senior officials to speak to the public (the alert was broadcast at 8:11 p.m.), according to sources present at the statement as witnesses, who explained to ARA. He added that when the emergency committee reconvened at 7:00 p.m. and he learned that the alert had not yet been broadcast, he exclaimed in surprise: "But haven't you sent the message?" Half an hour later, in a telephone conversation with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, Polo lamented that at the Cecopio "no one was making any decisions or doing anything."

The president of the CHX has also assured that during the fateful afternoon, the former Minister of Justice and Interior Salomé Pradas expressed her ignorance about how an emergency is managed, going so far as to ask senior officials in her department why it had been declared. He also explained that the PP leader doubted whether she had the legal capacity to take measures that would limit the mobility of the population. The words of the president of the Confederation confirm the ignorance that Pradas herself alleged before the judge on the day of her statement as a defendant and the From the head of climatology at the State Meteorological Agency in the Valencian Country, José Ángel Núñez.

Regarding the situation in the Poio ravine, whose overflow caused most of the deaths, Polo said he learned of the intense flooding of the ravine around 6:45 p.m. through the staff of the agency he heads. The SAIH [Automatic Hydrological Information System]recorded a sudden increase in flow at 6:43 p.m.. In this regard, he emphasized that the rapidity of the flooding in the ravines requires that population protection measures be adopted based on rainfall forecasts—in the province of Valencia, the red alert had been in effect since early this morning—and not on the data provided by systems such as the SAIH, which, according to Polo, are designed not to manage hydrological conditions.

Outside the Catarroja courts, Polo was greeted by a dozen people who booed him. Regarding this circumstance, the president of the CHX acknowledged that "coming to testify in these conditions is not pleasant." However, he added, he is "not afraid" because he has "nothing to hide."

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