The DANA judge asserts that the Mazón government "knew perfectly well" that the Poio ravine had overflowed.

BarcelonaThe government of Carlos Mazón "knew perfectly well" that the Poio ravine had overflowed its banks, yet it took hours to send a massive alert to the population. This is the conclusion reached by the the judge investigating the management of the DANA of the Generalitat Valenciana and their alleged responsibility in the deaths of more than 220 people in the floods. The judge of Catarroja's Investigative Court No. 3 analyzed the audio recordings of calls to 112 and confirmed that, as early as 5:10 p.m., people were already calling for help. She therefore concludes that the Valencian government was aware of the seriousness of the situation at that time. However, the mass alert to the population was not sent until after 8:00 p.m.

The investigator's thesis is that the Valencian authorities' inaction, given the data pointing to disaster, could constitute alleged crimes of homicide and injury. In a ruling released this Friday, the judge confirmed the charges against former Interior Minister Salomé Pradas and former Secretary of Emergencies of the Generalitat Valenciana, Emilio Argüeso, who had appealed the investigator's decision to summon him for investigation. Argüeso's defense had asked him to explain the charges against him and to specify who the victims were and the circumstances under which they lost their lives. The judge responded that in her ruling she had already "clearly" justified why both he and Pradas will have to appear as suspects on April 11. She also took the opportunity to point out that this decision was the result of having gathered testimony from family members, reports, and documentation on everything that happened on October 29.

To illustrate that the Valencian government knew the state of the floods hours before deciding to send the alert, the judge cites as an example the calls a young man made to 112 warning of the flooding in Chiva and pleading for emergency services to help him. "The river is taking them away," the boy said. The first call was at 5:10 p.m. and the last at 5:30 p.m. His father and two of his brothers ended up dying before the "powerlessness" of his mother, who witnessed it.

For all these reasons, the instructor reiterates that there was plenty of information on the status of the floods from the State Meteorological Agency, the Júcar Confederation, 112 and the media. Therefore, she concludes, the lack of response from the Valencian government and the absence of warnings to the population "wherever they might be, on the street, on the way home by car, at their homes or in retirement homes" are "inexplicable."

Rejection of the "Ventorro budgets"

Despite the investigation affecting his government, Mazón has so far avoided prosecution, which could only be ordered by the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community. This Friday, the Valencian president stated that he would meet with all the associations of families of victims of the DANA flood, in statements before an event organized by irrigation communities to commemorate Water Day. As he left, a young man accused him of mocking Valencians and called him a "murderer and a scoundrel," according to the Efe news agency. Mazón also stated that he would soon contact Pedro Sánchez to request "maximum cooperation" and financial assistance for the reconstruction of the Valencian Community following the damage caused by the downpours, for which the Valencian Government set a figure this Friday: €18 billion for 103 residents.

For now, Mazón is confident of resolving his government's political crisis. with the budgets that have been agreed with Vox, in exchange for adopting the right-wing rhetoric of Santiago Abascal's party. The Valencian opposition has already declared war on the pact: the Valencian Socialists and Compromís have announced that they will present amendments to the entire pact in what Joan Baldoví dubbed this Friday "Ventorro's budget."