The DANA judge amends a Civil Guard report: "It is erroneous and incomplete."

The instructor maintains that the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation and Aemet provided sufficient information.

Cars and buildings damaged by the DANA in the town of Catarroja, in the Valencian Community.
ARA
30/07/2025
3 min

BarcelonaAnother setback for Carlos Mazón's administration, which has always tried to blame the Spanish government for the effects of the DANA. The devastation of the tragedy, which resulted in 228 deaths, is reflected in a ruling, to which ARA has had access, in which the court again denies the indictment of the president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHX), Miguel Polo, as requested by a public prosecutor. The CH also makes a statement. The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) did not provide sufficient information on the day of the DANA. Aemet provided the Emergency Center with "exact" rainfall data "in real time."

"The analysis of the negligence, failures or guarantor position is exclusively jurisdictional," says the investigating judge Nuria Ruiz, who states that, given that the document focuses on assessments that do not correspond to the judicial police, these do not have "incriminating effectiveness" nor do they completely amend the investigation carried out by the Civil Guard.

The investigating judge explains that when she ordered this evidence the case was fully judicialized, so that "any exclusively police assessment of the negligence or non-compliance was doomed to failure," and also highlights that the report focuses on the Valencia Court.

For the judge, the Civil Guard document is "erroneous in its considerations and assessments of the failures and negligence" of those involved on the day of the DANA and, despite its 220 pages, it does not address what happened at the Operational Coordination Center or those of the victims, nor the conclusions of experts "radically different from those set forth and improperly included in the chronology."

Rejects the information blackout

The report reflects the "news blackout theory, which has been completely overcome and was dismissed by the courts," warns the investigating judge, who criticizes the fact that the information provided by Aemet to the Generalitat's 112 service center does not address the phone calls, including those disseminated "by some authority as a means of discrediting the government." For the judge, the report is also "clearly incomplete," as it focuses exclusively on information about forecasts and overflows originating from official agencies, ignoring the media coverage, despite the fact that they broadcast what was happening live.

"The only blackout that occurred is the one that was classified in the Cecopio as a period of exclusively in-person work," indicates the judge, who points out that, beyond the points where the CHX does not have control of the capacity, the control of the ravines must be done by the Emergency Center of the Generalitat, something that was in vain and that was generally withdrawn from the emergency. In this sense, the judge once again exonerates the CHX: "It is difficult to attribute to the CHX or its president the withdrawal of the firefighters, the failure to control the overflow, and the overwhelming number of deaths," says the order, which adds that the control of the flow to the ravines was surveillance at foot of the ravine itself.

The judge also details all the accumulated rainfall warnings sent by the CHX to the Ministry of Emergencies the afternoon of the DANA and explains that the Automated Hydrological Information System (SAIH) collected every 10 minutes the evolution of the flow of the Poio ravine and that it could. Finally, she criticizes that Liberum, which is exercising the prosecution in the case on behalf of some victims, has again requested the indictment of the president of the CHX, based on an interpretation "sui generis"from the Civil Guard report and in "now outdated theories of the so-called "news blackout", fake news about the capture of La Forata in the Poio ravine", and ignoring the rulings of the court and the Valencia Court.

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