"There will be dozens of deaths": Mazón's message to Feijóo before midnight
The two presidents did not speak until eight in the evening, by which time most of the casualties had already occurred.
BarcelonaJust before Christmas Eve, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, sent the judge in Catarroja, who is investigating the DANA storm, all the WhatsApp messages he exchanged with Carlos Mazón on October 29, 2024. These messages, made public by the news agency, reveal that Mazón claimed in the congressional committee that it wasn't until "five in the morning" that they knew there were deaths from the flooding, claiming that there were no official figures at the time. Thus, at 11:25 p.m., Mazón explained to Feijóo that the first deaths from the storm were now known: those in Utiel. "That's going to be a fucking disaster, Mr. President. There will be dozens, for sure," he wrote in the message.
The fact is that Mazón already knew that there was a death in Utiel at 4:28 p.m. Because the then Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, had informed her chief of staff, Juan Manuel Cuenca, of the first fatality. "We've been informed of a death in Utiel," Pradas texted Cuenca at that time. Fifteen minutes later, the chief of staff forwarded a message he had received from Mazón: "Perhaps we'll go to 112 at 7 p.m." – he ended up going at 8:28 p.m.
This revelation also refutes Feijóo's claim that he was "in constant contact" and "informed in real time" of what was happening in Valencia, as he maintained after the tragedy. In fact, the leader of the People's Party did not speak with the then head of the Valencian Government until 9:27 p.m., as documented. the list of calls Mazón made the afternoon of the DANA storm and which the Valencian regional government handed over in October. But the first contact between the two leaders wasn't until 7:59 p.m., when the leader of the People's Party (PP) wrote to Mazón, after learning "through the media" of the seriousness of the situation in Valencia. By then, most of the 230 people who lost their lives that fateful afternoon had already died. In this first WhatsApp message, the PP leader conveyed his solidarity and offered his assistance to the then-president for anything he "might need." Mazón replied at 8:08 p.m., just three minutes before the ES-Alert was sent, with a brief "Thanks, Presi." "I'll tell you later. It's getting worse by the minute," continued the Valencian leader, who, around 8:15 p.m., sent him another message: "It's going to be a long night." At 9:44 p.m., Feijóo received another message from Mazón after an unsuccessful call. Mazón explained that he had called to ask for the mobile phone number of the former president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete. The PP leader replied that he couldn't take the call because he was at an official event, but he provided the contact information and inquired about the state of the population. "We can't work without a connection," Mazón told him. Critical situation
Following this, Mazón admitted to Feijóo in another message that they feared the worst. "We are overwhelmed. We don't know what's really happening, but we're receiving reports of dozens of missing persons and I can't confirm them," he admitted. These statements highlight that the Valencian government acted late, although Pradas defended the 5 p.m. call to the Cecopio (the regional emergency coordination center) because there was no Level 2 alert before then. An hour and a half later, around 11:20 p.m., and questioning the Spanish government's actions, Mazón asserted that at Moncloa Palace they had "set up a crisis cabinet that's useless." "I have spoken with Sánchez, Montero, and the Ministers of Defense and the Interior so they can have potential personnel on standby for tomorrow," Mazón added. "Now the problem is that we can't even enter many towns, and there are people on the rooftops, terrified," he recounted in another message. In this conversation, he also stated: "Through the [Spanish government] Delegation, for the moment we have what we need, which right now is the UME (Military Emergency Unit)." This would also refute the claim that the state government failed to rise to the occasion that day, as Mazón has asserted on several occasions.
Sources within the PP (People's Party) have revealed, according to the newspaper ABCFeijóo has requested that his appearance as a witness on January 9th be conducted remotely, and it has been noted that, despite not being legally obligated to do so, he has provided all the messages he received that day from the former president of the Generalitat, along with the context in which they were sent, to ensure clarity. These same sources maintain that this will allow the judge to prepare in advance before Feijóo provides the necessary clarifications during his appearance.
