The Government delegate in Valencia declares that she offered the UME to the Generalitat eight hours before sending the alert | News from the Valencian Community
The Government Delegate in the Valencian Community, the socialist Pilar Bernabé, said Monday that he offered the Military Emergency Unit (UME) to the Generalitat eight hours before the Government of Carlos Mazón sent the mass alert to mobile phones to inform the population of the magnitude of the DANA that left 228 dead last October. In his statement as a witness in the Court of Catarroja (Valencia) that instructs the investigations of the flood, Bernabé explained that he contacted the then Minister of Justice and Interior of the Government of Carlos Mazón, the today charged Salome Pradas, at 12.23 hours of the day of the catastrophe, to offer him the military device, according to sources present in his statement. The Valencian Executive sent the massive SMS to the phones at 20.11 hours, when there were already dozens of deaths, missing and people trapped in low floors and garages.
The Cecopi meeting
Bernabé explained that, at a time of the Cecopi meeting – the emergency device of the Generalitat that met the afternoon of the Dana – was informed by the mayor of the Valencian municipality of Paiporta that there were neighbors drowning. And that, when starting this emergency meeting, the direction of the device told him that rescues were being very complicated in Utiel and that the UME had trouble entering this population. « Before 6:00 p.m., the counselor (Pradas) warned us that they were going to stop, that they were going to think what they were going to do and that, when they made a decision, they would notify us, » he said. « They asked us to turn off the cameras and microphones, » alluding to the conference by Zoom that brought together the 29 participants in the Cecopi. Bernabé has said that, before sending the alert, there was a cut in the connection of the “20 minutes” meeting.
On the arrival of Mazón to the Cecopi, Bernabé has indicated that he believed that the President He landed on the emergency device at 7:00 p.m. After several months of evasive, the Chief of the Consell confessed that he appeared at this center based in L’Aliana (Valencia) at 20.28 hours, 17 minutes after the sending of the mass alert to mobile phones.
The delegate has said that she participated in the emergency encounter telematically – where the connection was interrupted several times – and requested that the massive SMS to the phones would not be sent only because of the risk of breakage of the Foraata dam. « Pradas said that was happening elsewhere, » he said. Bernabé claimed that the alert was extended to the entire province of Valencia.
Calls to the Generalitat
The government head has explained that the President He communicated with her during the Aciaga Day through WhatsApp through a number that was not his. « (Mazón) had problems with her phone, » explained the delegate, who has attended the list of calls that registered her mobile on 29-0. The leader called Pradas at 12.33. « It was a five -minute call, in which I explained that I had spoken with the mayors and put myself at your disposal. » « My call attended, he told me that he took note and that we were still in contact. » « In television demonstrations (Pradas) came to say that he had not offered him to the UME. »
After contacting the mayors of Utiel and Requena, Bernabé called Pradas again. It was at 2:06 p.m. At 14.53 hours it calls me meadows and officially asks me to go. « » From that moment on, it was all very distressing. All the calls I had with the mayor of Utiel were of despair, of great concern, ”said Bernabé, who was at the headquarters of the Government Delegation during the Aciaga Day.
The Executive delegate has declared that she thought that the text that the Generalitat sent to the mobiles during the Cecopi meeting to warn of the danger of torrential rains included a mention to the neighbors to climb to the first plants and avoid the bass. The instructor has already affirmed that the controversial letter was late, she was confusing and, if she had executed correctly, she would have saved lives.
The delegate explained that, on Dana’s day, she annulled a trip to Córdoba after knowing that the meteorological red alert had been decreed. He summoned his team, a meeting that started at 9.30 am from the Aciaga Day and contact with organizations such as the Civil Guard, the Spanish Meteorology Agency (Aemet) and the UME. « I wanted you to explain what had happened during the night, » he added. Bernabé has reported that he asked the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ), which depends on the Ministry for Ecological Transition, for the risks of the day and called the mayors of the municipalities of the region of the Ribera during October 29.
The Government delegate is listed by declaring as a witness from 9.45 hours. Before the judge that criminally instructs the investigations of the cold drop, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra. Unlike last Friday, when they came to declare as investigated the two former positions of Carlos Mazón executive – the former counselor of Justice and Interior of the Generalitat Salome Pradas And who was his second, the former emergency director Emilio Argüeso – Bernabé has not been unbelievable at the entrance of the glazed swarm of offices of the city of Justice of Valencia. Dozens of relatives of victims then received the two former leaders to the shout of « Mazón, resignation! » or « Mazón, Putero! »
Bernabé, that as a witness should tell the truth and respond to all parties, has indicated before entering the court that will not avoid any of the questions. The dozens of particular accusations may formulate issues (most are relatives of fatalities), the popular ones – which exercise parties such as Podemos, Vox, Citizens or the PSOE -, the prosecutor and lawyers of the former Mazón charges charged in the investigations,
Since the judicial instruction started, five months ago, Bernabé has become the target of the extreme right organizations, as if to hear, who have resorted to his figure to try to sustain the thesis of the responsibility of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez in the monumental flood. An argument that the instructor already ruled out, insisting on the « autonomous competition » of the tragedy, and the Public Ministry, which dismissed the appeal of this Ultra Organization.
The prosecution then estimated that Bernabé did not commit any irregularity Not urging the Ministry of Interior to the statement of the state of emergency after the cold drop. « Such an argument is absurd. It is as if, before a traffic accident with injuries and deaths, several drivers denote the help of the victims, and a complaint is formalized against one of the drivers, » the Public Ministry then justified in a brief.
The statement as a Bernabé witness develops two days later that the two former leaders of the Mazón Executive investigated declared before the magistrate. Pradas and Argüeso wielded traced exculpatory thesis to justify their work in the tragedy, discharged their responsibility in the technicians and explicitly protected those who catapulted them to the first line of the Valencian politics, Carlos Mazón. The investigations instruct the alleged crimes of homicide and reckless injuries, which are punished between four and three years in jail, respectively.
The president of the Diputación de Valencia, Vicent Mompó, of the PP, will also declare today as a witness to Judge Tobarra.
