A year after the devastating storm, details continue to emerge highlighting the Valencian government's negligent handling of the ES-Alert, specifically the delayed dissemination of the alert on the day of the catastrophe. One of the new revelations came on Tuesday from Inmaculada Piles, head of the 112 emergency coordination service. She admitted to the judge presiding over the case that at 6:35 p.m. on October 29th of last year, Patricia García, head of Civil Protection for the Spanish government's delegation in the Valencian Community, had already indicated to her that it was "the message." In other words, the alert was considered more than an hour and a half before it was broadcast at 8:11 p.m., by which time most of the 229 victims had already died. In fact, The ARA explained a year ago that the Spanish government had already asked the Valencian Generalitat to send the alert a few minutes after six in the eveningPiles's statement, therefore, adds to other testimonies gathered by the magistrate that reveal the inaction of the Ministry of Emergencies, headed by the accused Salomé Pradas, but also the passivity of the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, with his multiple absences, a four-hour meal with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana and a string of version changes about when it started to worry about the tragedy.

Suddenly, the phone emits a shrill sound, to which we were previously unfamiliar, and a text from the Generalitat Civil Protection appears, often accompanied by a danger signal with an exclamation point. The content of the message varies depending on the emergency: there is a fire nearby and you must stay indoors; downpours are forecast and it is recommended to avoid outdoor activities; there has been an accident that could cause a chemical cloud… This is the ES-Alert alert, which sends pop-up messages to all mobile phones within an area. It was recently sent to the vast majority of the Catalan population (37 of the 43 regions) due to the torrential rains in mid-July.

The widespread power outage affecting the entire Iberian Peninsula has highlighted the need to prepare homes for a situation of this nature. These are some of the items and supplies you should always have at home to deal with an emergency of this type.

The recent drama experienced by the Indian population in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic has been widely covered by the international media. This has contributed to the mobilization of public opinion and to humanitarian intervention actions. The images of people dying at the doors of hospitals for lack of beds, medicine and oxygen is terrifying and a reminder of humanitarian catastrophes like Biafra and Darfur. During the past weeks, those of us who spend time in India and with Indians, have been witnessing heartbreaking images of a suffering people. We could hear continuously ambulance sirens carrying bodies. There were also images of crematoria, deliriously full and working from sunrise to sunset. One could smell the stench of charred bodies and hear the lamentations of grieving families. The shortage of oxygen and the disorganization of hospitals and ambulances are particularly visible and have taken tragic proportions for this miserable population which counts its deaths every minute of the day. As such, one can say that happy India has suddenly turned into an image of Judgement Day.