The tragedy of the Dana de Valencia “was predictable and expected and could have been avoided,” said the engineer and public works expert Francisco Javier Sánchez Caro, who recalled that in the Mediterranean basin “the rivers are very dangerous and ignore it is a danger.”
Sánchez Caro is a technical director of Geotechnics of Projects and Works (Geoprob) and has spoken to the DANA Research Commission in the Senate about the circumstances that influenced the catastrophe on October 29, as well as the management carried out by the different administrations involved and possible actions for the recovery and prevention of future floods.
The expert has remarked that the tragedy in Valencia “could have been avoided” because cold drops, now called isolated depressions at high levels (Dana) of autumn, happen periodically every 20 or 25 years. “This was predictable and expected”, because in the Mediterranean basin there are “short rivers with large slopes, such as the Ebro River, with a medium flow but that can multiply the flow by up to fifteen” in episodes of cold drop.
A situation that “is perfectly known by the State, with areas with significant potential risk” of flooding collected in hydrological plans.
“We do not have normal rivers in the Mediterranean basin, we have very dangerous rivers, ignoring it is a danger,” he said, and stressed that the inhabitants of the Mediterranean region “are not aware that they live in a highly dangerous region, the one with the greatest risk” in Spain.
Sánchez Caro recalled that the one known as the “new water culture” led to transfer the General Directorate of Water, dependent on its day of the Ministry of Promotion of the Ministry of Environment, today of ecological transition and demographic challenge. It is like “if there were a confrontation between public works and the environment,” he said, and has considered that “we must take the competition to the Ministry of Ecological Transition and give it to technicians, beyond political ideologies.”
In his opinion, it is necessary to “adopt structural measures, such as dams and channeling of rivers, to prevent floods, and non -structural, such as environmental and urban planning actions”, but each in “respective and different scenarios.”
They are works that must be focused on “saving the lives of people”, because “structural works are the only ones that can save lives, because they do not avoid flow but prevent” and technicians are those that must be in charge of these works, to avoid tragedies such as 2024 in Valencia, which “has not been the most serious.”
“The only thing that protects a population is hydraulic works. You can say in many ways, but if works are not done this will happen again,” he has warned, and has indicated that it is necessary to “undertake works in an urgent way, everything that has not been built in twenty years.”
On the management of the catastrophe, he has opined that “it has been a disaster” and added that “it could have been better if each organism had adopted their decisions.”
There was “lack of logistics, lack of unique command and coordination and competence, because politicians have no competence in these issues,” he said, although he has not wanted to qualify political responsibilities, in response to a question by the Senator of Compromís Enric Morera.
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