Alex Trelinski
A JUDGE coordinating legal investigations into the handling of the Valencia flood disaster has said that emergency phone alerts on October 29 were ‘notably late’ and that deaths could have been avoided.
The Catarroja judge said the texts- eventually sent at 8.11pm- were ‘wrong in context’ as many people had already died in their homes, garages, or on roads.
A written statement said that damage to property affecting hundreds of thousands of people ‘could not be avoided, but the deaths could’.
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He said the investigation must focus ‘on the obvious absence of warnings to residents who could not take any measures to protect themselves’.
224 people died in the floods, with three people still missing.
The judge commented on complaints made against fire crews insinuating they could have done more to save lives.
“The torrents of water and mud that flooded streets made it unfeasible for fire vehicles to gain access to people who were drowning,” he stated.
He added that it was even ‘less feasible’ for individual firefighters to move between flood-hit roads.
The judge will probe the delay between the 5pm start on October 29 of a meeting of the Cecopi emergency body and the phone alert being eventually sent over three hours later.
The La Vanguardia newspaper reported on Wednesday that the former Valencian Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salome Pradas, waited for regional president Carlos Mazon to arrive at Cecopi and held a private meeting with him before the alert was sent.
Mazon came from enjoying an afternoon meal with a journalist while the floods started to wreak havoc.
