Those who did not live to listen to the DANA alert: from the entrepreneur clinging to a lamppost to the veterinarian trapped in a garage | News from the Valencian Community

Most of the victims of the natural catastrophe that ravaged the Valencian Community on October 29 lost their lives, disappeared or trapped before the massive message that the Generalitat sent directly to the population's mobiles. This is confirmed by the summary of the case of the Dana that caused death to 227 people. Your reading is heartbreaking. The succession of testimonies of family, friends or neighbors revives those terrible hours and returns the focus to the true victims of drama. Meanwhile, the Generalitat tries to remove the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, from the decision to launch the alert to the citizens to protect him judicially.

The alert sneaked into the phones on the day of the tragedy at 20.11 hours, when the Valencian Barranco del Poyo had already overflowed, dozens of municipalities were flooded, and 112 was collapsed. More than 60 testimonies of relatives of victims They have paraded before the magistrate who criminally investigates the Dana Since October. The head of the Court of Instruction number three of Catarroja (Valencia), Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, has focused on finding out what the delay responded to the message (which also considers “wrong” in its content for not asking people to protect themselves in height) sent by the Generalitat, through Es-Alert, a system of which the ex-counselor of Interior and Justice Salome Pradas acknowledged that he did not even know what existed – despite the fact that Consell himself admitted in his documents that he was already active and, in fact, he had tried it, « before being dismissed by Mazón. »

The instructor's thesis of the case is that many deaths could be avoided. Investigates the alleged « negligent action » and the possible « homicides for serious recklessness » and recalls in one of its cars that « the competence in civil protection is autonomic. » These are some of the human stories that the tragedy leaves, as the summary collects:

The entrepreneur clicks on a lamppost

HH, an Asian businessman with two children, saw how a great wave buried his bazaar in Massanassa (Valencia, 9,584 inhabitants). The water began to penetrate the premises at 6.30 pm. And, half an hour later, in a desperate maneuver, he decided to raise the blinds. His store has become a mousetrap. You can't go out for its two doors. « My father wanted to leave my mother alone, » says her daughter, who points out that the last time she spoke with her parent went to the « eight and peak. » The entrepreneur tries to climb to the highest part of the shelves, but the structure does not endure. He also tries to reach the first floor of the building, but his neighbor, an advanced woman, is not and cannot open. Finally, break the glass of one of the doors of the bazaar, goes out and stays clutch to a lamppost. The water reaches two and a half meters high. The overflow moves a parked truck, which impacts against the post and causes a lethal fall. The tenders' body appeared two weeks later.

A lethal walk

On the day of the tragedy, A. Martín went down to take a walk at 6:45 p.m. by Alfafar (22,131 inhabitants). As it did not rain, he prepared to make his daily routine. He was going without a mobile and did not carry his DNI. His wife went down to the street to throw plastic at a recycling point and, when she went home, she put on television. The informative showed the collapse of a bridge in Paiporta (27,184 inhabitants). Half an hour later, the light left. The woman did not see her husband again. The next day, this population in which the Dana left 15 deaths toured without success. “A pharmacist told me that there were four people uploaded to the post of light. My husband could not be one of them for his leg, ”said the woman about a physical impediment of the missing.

The garage turned into mousetrap

The Veterinary of Benetússer (15,879 inhabitants) Re left its clinic on the day of the catastrophe at 7.30 pm. Her boyfriend, who had stayed with her to pick her up with the car, could not enter this population in which the flood left 10 deaths. He parked the vehicle in neighbor Alfafar and was giving a rodeo in search of his partner. It did not reach the destination. The girl was protected in a street near the establishment where she worked. “The cars made a kind of prey and began to enter water with great force. My daughter grabbed a man with a metal post of a garage that was open, ”the father told the magistrate. The two victims fall rolling along the ramp. His father says his relative hit and was unconscious. It was found 300 meters from the parking lot, which had become a mousetrap.

The parking lot

The neighbor of Catarroja Lr lowered the day of the Dana to the garage of his house at six in the afternoon and never knew him again. His wife sent desperate an hour later a video to his son in which cars appeared floating through the waters that ravaged this Valencian population, in which the flood caused 25 deaths. « In principle, we thought he had been able to get the car out of the garage, but he couldn't leave and caught his thrombus on him, » said his son. The relative believes that his father tried to leave the garage along the ramp, when a water thrombus entered the building.

Incommunicated and locked

When the son of I. tried to talk to his mother, neighbor of Alfafar, the phone communicated. It was 18.45 on the day of the tragedy. And the water began to silence the streets of this population. At 7.30 am the next day, the relative managed to access the house, which is shattered and with the sofa embedded in the window. A Civil Guard couple opened the only room in the property that was closed. The woman, age, was not. “The water reached two meters and could not walk. It was before the alert, ”her son told the magistrate. The body ended up appearing under a car.