“Nothing would have changed if I had arrived at Cecopi sooner”

During the appearance of the Congress of Deputies, Carlos Mazón has not disappointed the non-existent expectations regarding his explanations to the victims of the dana that cost 229 deaths. As happened last week in Les Corts, the still acting Valencian president did not admit any error in the management of the catastrophe, he justified his presence in a restaurant until late in the afternoon and did not clarify the great unknown yet to be revealed: what he did and where he was between seven and eight in the afternoon, when several municipalities in the province were already flooded and the water had carried away hundreds of people.

“Nothing would have changed if I had arrived at CECOPI earlier because the information had not arrived. They said it was going to be a short meeting because the AEMET assured that the storm would end at six in the afternoon,” Mazón said to justify his decision not to abandon his lunch after dinner and join the operation. The Aemet called the Generalitat’s Emergency Department to warn them that the worst would come between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. In that call, whose audio was leaked and manipulated and Mazón himself spread on his networks, a matter that Justice is investigating, at no time is it mentioned that the storm is going to leave the Cuenca mountain range at 6:00 p.m.

It was not the only lie launched in the Lower House by the Valencian president, who throughout his speech tried to evade responsibility for the emergency device of that day. Mazón dissociates himself, for example, from sending the alert: “You will have to ask the operational services,” he said when asked by deputy Ione Belarra, from Podemos, about the reasons for not sending the message sooner. “It was sent when the operational commanders understood that it was the right time,” he said.

Nor has it shed light during the blind hour, between seven and eight in the afternoon, in which its whereabouts remain unknown. Questioned as to why he did not answer the calls of his counselor, Salomé Pradas, Mazón has not been able to articulate a coherent response. According to the president, he did not answer his mobile phone at 7:10 p.m. during the dana on October 29, 2024 because he was “walking” and “had it in his backpack.” At that time, and at 7:36 p.m., Mazón received calls from the Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas, prior to sending the alert message that was definitively sent at 8:10 p.m., when the floods had already flooded a good part of the province of Valencia.

“I don’t know if I was walking and had my cell phone in my backpack,” he replied to the Compromís deputy Águeda Mico. “I don’t know,” he insisted, “when I saw the missed call I called him back,” he said. And he added that at 7:36 p.m. he did not respond either because “he was talking to other people.”

Carlos Mazón has also acknowledged that he had not planned to go to the emergency center (CECOPI) called on the day of the dana on October 29, 2024, in which 229 people died. “I had not planned to go to Cecopi. What happened that day was not a problem of decisions, it was a problem of lack of information,” he defended himself.

The ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, has used the time of his interrogation of the acting president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, to compile the stories of some of the victims of the dana of October 29, 2024 and ask him “where was he?” when they died and if “he has anything to say to the “victims” or “their relatives.” Mazón has insisted on showing his “condolences to all the victims”, to which Rufián has replied “I’m not interested.”

“Do you know where you were? In ‘El Ventorro’, rejecting calls from Salomé Pradas,” the ERC deputy reproached him. “Don’t lie to me,” he snapped. “I am the only one who has publicly asked for forgiveness,” Mazón responded.

Rufián has also asked the Valencian president if his bodyguards accompanied him to Ventorro. “Yes,” Mazón answered. “And on the way out?” “No,” he responded. The subsequent decoration of these agents, the ERC spokesperson said, recognizes “the merit of silence and complicity.”

Rufián has closed his interrogation in Congress of the acting ‘president’ of the Valencian Generalitat by calling him “useless, a liar, incapable, miserable, homicidal and psychopath.” “I hope he pays with prison for everything he has done, and I hope the people of Valencia are allowed to vote.” “Whoever uses that language describes himself,” Mazón replied.

Carlos Mazón assures that after leaving El Ventorro he accompanied Maribel Vilaplana to a nearby parking lot and that, from there, he walked to the Palau de la Generalitat. A movement of which there are no witnesses because his bodyguards did not accompany him. When asked by socialist deputy Alejandro Soler, the Valencian president assured that during the meal he drank “water and some wine” and that he put on a sweater “because he was cold,” but that he did not change his clothes.

The socialist deputy has demanded that Mazón “leave the record, go to court, tell the truth and call elections.” Mazón has assured that during his meal no one knew “that there were people who were drowning.” Neither Vox nor the PP have questioned the Valencian president and have decided to use their interventions to attack the central government.