The 112 received calls for help hours before the alert on the day of the Dana: “The ravine overflows, people trapped in cars”

The emergency telephone 112 He registered the highest call of calls -2.438- between 17 and 6 pm on October 29, Dana catastrophic day with 227 dead in the province of Valencia. The number of communications with 112 gradually increased from early in the morning.

Between 15.00 – when the situation begins to be more complicated – and 23.59 hours were counted 12,874 for an average of 300 different incidents. In the three hours before the mass alert to the mobile phones of the population, which It was not issued until 8:00 p.m.4,943 calls were recorded.

This is stated in a report by the Security and Emergency Agency of the Generalitat Valenciana, dated February 28 and consulted by ABC, which has been sent to the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 3 of Catarroja, which investigates the management of the flood.

The magistrate had asked 112 from what time in that fateful Tuesday, calls began to be received about the effects of the Dana and from what populations they proceeded. The first was recorded at 5.03 hours and warned of water entry into a house in the municipality of Cofrentes.

From there, the document – with more than one hundred pages – deducts the 19,821 which were received throughout the day by 4,770 incidents. One of them, performed at 6:56 p.m. from Catarroja, warned: “Barranco overflows, people trapped inside cars.” There were then two hours still for the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) to be in the same building in L’Eliana in which 112 is managed-send the message ES-alert, “late” and “erroneous content” according to the judge.

The last emergency call of that black day, at 23.59h, was that of a man grabbed a tree in Sedaví, in a place where the water reaches the “two and a half meters.”

“The ravine has overflowed”

The region of La Ribera focused in the early hour of October 29 the majority of notices for heavy rains: flooded houses and streets, impassable roads, cars trapped with people inside … from noon the focus moves to the area of ​​Utiel and Requena. Even there mobilized the Emergency Military Unit (UME), which had problems accessing. The overflow of the lean river in Utiel – around 14h – triggered the calls asking for bailouts and warning of the situation of elderly with reduced mobility that could not rise to the upper plants. Some were already with water to “chest height.”

In parallel, at 5:19 p.m., in Chiva – locality crossed by a ravine – there were “several people on the roof” of a flooded house. Fifteen minutes later, it was indicated that the “strong flood” carried the water to the level of the roof of a house. “The ravine has overflowed” and “company is flooding,” reported at 5:52 p.m. from Cheste. “The Rambla del Poyo has overflowed,” they warn from Riba-Roja de Túria at 6:31 p.m. A minute later, the same notice comes from Paiporta, also adding that “they have not cut the area.” At 19.12h, it is replicated from Picanya.

At that time there are critical moments in various parts of the province of Valencia and the tragedy begins in the municipalities of L’Horta Sud.