One yr after historic floods killed 229 folks in Valencia, the Spanish area’s chief Carlos Mazón has confronted mounting criticism over his whereabouts throughout the catastrophe, snubbing 12 mass protests which have known as for him to resign.
The jap area bordering the Mediterranean had woken up underneath the very best purple alert for torrential rain on October 29 final yr.
However for 5 hours, the conservative Mazón, 51, was absent from the entrance line of an emergency response extensively condemned as insufficient.
Above all, the late sending of a mass phone alert to residents at 8:11 pm sparked fierce scrutiny of his agenda and a debate about whether or not that delayed doubtlessly life-saving motion.
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“If Mazón had actually been the place he ought to have been, the alarm would have arrived on time,” leftist MP Agueda Mico, of the regionalist Compromis occasion, stated on Tuesday.
Areas are primarily accountable for managing emergencies in Spain’s decentralised political system, however Mazón has denied accusations of dereliction of responsibility throughout the nation’s deadliest pure catastrophe in a long time.
“I didn’t change off my cell, I used to be not unreachable, I didn’t lack protection, I didn’t lose curiosity, nor was I misplaced,” he advised native newspaper Las Provincias in a uncommon interview for the reason that tragedy.
Based on the Levante newspaper, a colleague advised Mazón there have been already “many deaths” when he arrived within the night on the seat of the regional authorities after a prolonged lunch.
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Mazón resumed work at 7:45 pm and joined a vital emergency providers assembly at round 8:30 pm, shortly after the phone alert had been despatched.
However the warning was too little, too late: muddy floodwater was already gushing by means of cities south of Valencia metropolis and claiming lives.
Protesters in Valencia maintain an effigy of Carlos Mazón studying “prison” throughout a demo to protest the regional authorities’s response to the floods. (Photograph by Jose Miguel FERNANDEZ / AFP)
Shifting narrative
Mazón stated he spent 4 of his 5 hours of absence having lunch with a journalist to supply her a job.
This got here after he had initially claimed to have eaten with a consultant of Valencian companies, however the particular person in query rapidly got here out to disclaim that account.
The remaining hour of Mazón’s absence — a vital interval throughout which regional authorities hesitated about sending the alarm — stays shrouded in thriller.
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The journalist, Maribel Vilaplana, broke her silence final month, saying they left the restaurant “between 6:30 and 6:45”.
However sources near Vilaplana, contradicting Mazón’s narrative, revealed that he then accompanied her to seek for her automobile as an alternative of heading straight to his workplace.
An unexplained hole persists in his account of occasions from 6:57 to 7:34, when Mazón made and obtained no calls, in line with a listing he submitted to a parliamentary committee.
At 7:36 pm, the checklist exhibits he turned down a name from his then-top emergencies official, Salomé Pradas, now underneath investigation for her position within the dealing with of the floods.
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Conservatives ‘undermined’
Though not underneath formal judicial investigation himself, Mazón has spent a yr resisting intense stress to resign.
Hundreds of protesters have descended on Valencia’s streets each month demanding he stop, whereas 75 % of the area’s residents need him to go, in line with a ballot printed on Monday by Las Provincias and conservative each day ABC.
Consultants view Mazón as a burden for the nationwide chief of his opposition conservative Fashionable Occasion (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who prefers to dodge the subject.
Mazón “undermines Feijóo as a frontrunner” and provides the Socialists “arguments to answer corruption accusations” towards Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, stated Antón Losada, a political science professor on the College of Santiago de Compostela.
For Paloma Román Marugán, affiliate professor of political science at Madrid’s Complutense College, the PP has entered “a rabbit gap” that would have been averted “with a swift resignation that by no means occurred”.
“However bringing him (Mazón) down is a tough puzzle” for the PP because the occasion has no apparent alternative and desires to keep away from early elections, she advised AFP.
READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Valencia area so vulnerable to damaging flooding?
