“I can have a thousand soldiers at the emergency door, but I can’t enter until the emergency director authorizes me.” With these words, the head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Lieutenant General Javier Marcos, explained this Monday the actions of the Armed Forces in the catastrophe caused by DANA in the Valencian Community. As he has revealed, he himself ordered the activation of the first troops when he was aware of the danger, but they could not act until the autonomous community services gave the “green light.”
General Marcos appeared this Monday at the Moncloa Palace after the meeting of the crisis committee to monitor the effects of DANA, held at the UME headquarters at the Torrejón de Ardoz base (Madrid) chaired by the King.
As the head of the Armed Forces device activated to deal with the emergency, the head of the UME has explained that the decision of when and where to act corresponds to the Valencian Community. At the same time, he has defended the volume of soldiers that has been deployed in recent days, which is his responsibility.
“From the first moment all the capabilities of the Armed Forces, not just the UME, were put at the service of the Valencian Community,” he assured. The forecast is to reach 7,800 troops deployed when it ends this Monday, in addition to those in charge of maintenance and logistics tasks in the units.
The Armed Forces have divided the 69 affected municipalities into four zones and they have been present in all of them, the general has assured, although he has recognized that they must prioritize their actions. “The complexity is so great that it requires discipline and patience,” he assumed.
“I ask you to please understand that the 7,800 soldiers are doing everything we can, we double shifts,” he insisted on a clear message to the citizens who demand more military presence on their streets. We didn’t leave a house behind. I know my soldiers well, they are working hard. “No behavior of the Armed Forces can be questioned.”
In an account of the steps taken since last Tuesday, he explained that the UME was following the meteorological situation and, when he warned of the danger of the situation, he launched the two legal tools at his disposal to order that they go to fifty soldiers from the Valencia battalion to their posts, activating an advanced deployment to be able to act as soon as they received the “authorization” of the community. In fact, he has assured that only 15 minutes passed from when they were given the order to act until they left their bases, achieving around a hundred access to the Utiel-Requena area. “As soon as the Generalitat gave the green light through an established procedure, in minutes we were in the emergency zone,” he guaranteed.
Shortly after, a second intervention was activated, which led him to alert around a thousand soldiers. «As soon as the green light was given to intervene in the rest of the province of Valencia, 1,000 soldiers from five battalions moved throughout the night. We did not intervene quickly, first because the weather prevented it and secondly because of order and discipline,” he reiterated, pointing again to regional responsibility.
«In an emergency situation the autonomous community is responsible for the direction, who directs the emergency is the autonomous community, who decides where we go or where we do not go is the autonomous community. From there, as a military unit, we began to act.
With all this, General Marcos has acknowledged that his “perception” is that “things are being done well and the situation is improving,” although he has acknowledged that “time is needed.” For now, he has revealed that a morgue with capacity for 400 bodies has been set up.
The head of the EMU has avoided entering into the debate on the alert level that should have been declared and has stressed that his mission is to act “to save.” “I do not want to distract my attention or that of my soldiers one bit in other evaluations that do not correspond to me,” he stated.
The general has indicated his “total confidence” in the emergency services of the Valencian Community, as well as the rest of the autonomies, and has insisted that the responsibility for the action is his. “I am responsible for the sizing, but entry into the area is the responsibility of the emergency director.”
Regarding this dimensioning, questioned by some localities and citizens of the affected areas, he explained that it is not possible to deploy thousands of soldiers in the first hours because their work would be useless. “The worst enemy of an emergency is improvisation.” “The procedure has been correct and the escalation of forces the most appropriate, sharing the feeling of pain of all those affected.”
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