«Right now, what any Valencian citizen is looking for are answers. And we are all obliged to give answers. These are the words of the Secretary of State, Hugo Morán, just three days ago in Congress, despite the fact that the top officials of the government agencies involved in the management of the tragedy, on the one hand the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, and on the other hand, the president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ), Miguel Polo, have been missing in action since the tragedy broke out. Perhaps that is why Morán qualified a few minutes after saying his words. “It is advisable not to anticipate conclusions with the analysis of how we acted and what information was available,” he said. That is, some response time must wait. It is not the first contradiction in the area of Ecological Transition. In fact, there are two points where the actions of the ministry and the CHJ are not clear. The first has to do with the lack of detection of the avenue that rushed down the Poyo ravine and that was fatal in places like Paiporta, Catarroja or Benetússer. The second problem has to do with the risk and action protocol regarding the Forata dam. Thus, throughout the day, October 29, the CHJ sent up to four emails informing about the flow of the Poyo ravine. The first, at 12:09, since the flow was growing and reached 264 m3/s. The ministry recognizes that, “in accordance with its internal protocol”, the CHJ “redundantly” notifies the civil protection authorities of the flow levels when they rise above 150 m3/s. However, when this happened in the afternoon, he did not do so. His last email about this ravine was sent at 4:13 p.m., to warn that the water had dropped and was barely reaching 28.7 m3/s. It took two and a half hours, until 6:43 p.m., to report again on this topic, despite the fact that at 5 p.m. the flow was 325 m3/s, at 6 p.m. it was 1,725 m3/s, and at 7 p.m. 1,938.71 m3/s, with catastrophic consequences. In a first response, sources from the CHJ assured ABC that the email from the Poyo ravine was not sent before because the technicians were at the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) since 5 p.m., and that it was upon their departure when the information was sent by email. But during this same meeting, however, they did send emails about the Forata reservoir, which was at risk of breaking. Furthermore, according to the latest explanation given by this organization to ‘El País’, the Generalitat’s Emergency Plan specifies that they are in charge of the large rivers and dams, with monitoring the evolution of the Poyo ravine being the regional responsibility. Even so, upon leaving Cecopi the email is sent with information about the flood. Nor did Morán in Congress give a clear answer about the times in which the information was transferred: “The hydrological alert is decreed by the autonomous community,” he defended himself. However, yesterday the Minister of the Interior of the Valencian Community acknowledged that it was a call at 8 p.m. from the Secretary of State that ended up promoting the geolocated alert from Civil Protection, although it was due to the risk of the Forata dam breaking. That call from the Secretary of State is also delayed. The General Directorate of Water of the ministry accepted, in an email at 6:29 p.m., the activation of scenario 2 in the Forata dam, which already implies a risk of failure.
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