Were there reasons to declare a national emergency due to DANA that was going to sweep part of Spain? In the General State Emergency Plan (Plegem), in force since its publication in the BOE on December 16, 2020, this question corresponds in Spain with a level 3 alert, or what is the same, emergency of national interest. This stage is declared by the responsible Minister of the Interior, in this case Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and he does so on his own initiative or at the proposal of the autonomous community – the Valencian Generalitat – that claims it or of the Government delegate in the Community (Pilar Bernabé in the case of the current storm).
Level 3 has never been declared until now in the history of Spain. It means that the emergency requires the declaration of a state of alarm, exception or siege in the country, with the difficulties that it implies in mobility and other restrictions that we all now know after the Covid pandemic or that requires a national direction. Once this level 3 emergency is declared or decreed, then the direction and management of the entire emergency is completely vested in the central government.
The sources consulted by ABC insist that level 3 has never been declared until now, although it has been close (without going any further in the summer of 2022 in Castilla y León due to the collapse of regional services due to the forest fires that devastated the Culebra mountain range in Zamora and caused several deaths). The fires of the so-called sixth generation were so virulent that it was thought that with the troops assigned it would not be possible to appease the influx of calls, even threatening nearby towns. In the end, the troops assigned were able to put out the terrible fires and this declaration, which was weighed, did not become necessary.
Emergency experts consulted by this newspaper emphasize that if the emergency is serious, like the DANA that has hit the province of Valencia in the last few hours, Letur in Albacete and several Andalusian towns, but it is “centered in a delimited territory,” The most logical thing is to declare level 2 of emergency (as the Generalitat Valenciana did yesterday, although with criticism in case it did it too late, around 3:00 p.m.), so that this directly implies mobilizing resources from the State and other communities. Just yesterday, the Valencian authorities thanked the Military Emergency Unit (UME) for their help in the tragedy, as well as for supplies sent from regions such as Murcia, Aragon, Madrid, Galicia and Andalusia.
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