For the first time since the tragedy broke out in Valencia, the head general of the Military Emergency Unit has appeared after the meeting of the Crisis Committee held this Monday at the Moncloa Palace under the presidency of Felipe VI. General Francisco Javier Marcos has detailed the military device put in place and has assured that he mobilized his men preventively in view of the weather forecasts and while waiting to receive orders from the Generalitat of Valencia.
“At alert level 2, the one who directs the emergency is the Autonomous Community, the one who decides where we go or where we don’t go is the Autonomous Community. It is the emergency director who tells us where to act, and we have done that with discipline. “I can deploy and mobilize my men but I cannot enter until the emergency director of the Generalitat authorizes me,” he stated.
The head of the UME explained that the battalions available in Valencia were prepared since Tuesday. “The day the emergency broke out, the UME had been following the situation. I had two legal tools: early warning and advance deployment. When I saw what could come, I used those two tools. I ordered all the soldiers of battalion number 3 located at the Jaime I base in Valencia to go to their posts. 500 perfectly equipped soldiers. I ordered the deployment so they would be prepared. From the moment I gave the order until they left it took 15 minutes. As soon as the Generalitat gave us the green light, we were in the emergency zone in minutes,” he detailed.
General Marcos has also explained why the UME took a while to start working on the ground: “I have the legal capacity to deploy my soldiers, but for them to act we need the order from the emergency command of the Autonomous Community, it is about complying the law.”
“As soon as I saw what could happen, I alerted 1,000 soldiers and as soon as we had the green light to intervene in the rest of the province, 1,000 soldiers were deployed so that the people of Valencia could see at dawn on Wednesday that we were there,” he continued, to clarify. : “It is true that we did not intervene quickly because the weather did not prevent them and for a matter of order and discipline: we could not add chaos to a truly chaotic situation!” he pointed out in reference to the fact that they waited for orders from the Autonomous Community.
The head of the Military Emergency Unit has recognized the “pain” of the population in the areas affected by the damage in the province of Valencia but has asked for “patience” given the complexity of the situation and the mobility problems and has assured that The Armed Forces are doing everything possible.
Marcos has reported that there are currently 6,600 members of the Armed Forces deployed and by 8:00 p.m. this figure will reach 7,800, to which many more must be added (5,000 in the case of the Army) who are supporting the operations. from a distance.
The head general of the UME has stressed that “the degree of destruction is such that mobility is limited.” “It is such a great complexity that this requires two things: being disciplined and having patience,” he added.
In this sense, after recognizing that “it is difficult because emotion and pain make this not easy,” he has asked the population to “understand that the 7,800 soldiers of the Armed Forces are doing everything we can, doubling shifts.” , and that there are more personnel available to be able to transport it on planes.
According to General Marcos, the troops of the UME, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force are present in the 69 affected towns, but “they are not only the towns, they are the roads that connect those towns, they are the bridges, are the isolated houses.”
“We are not leaving a house behind,” he assured, arguing that the soldiers “are giving their all at all times,” with twelve-hour shifts after which they return exhausted. “You cannot question any behavior of the Armed Forces that is not what it should be,” he insisted, defending that they do so “of course, fulfilling our mission, which is to save to serve.”
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