Valencia’s president accepted a sustainable tourism award and posed for pictures on Tuesday despite a series of warnings of catastrophic flooding.
Carlos Mazón is scrambling to save his political career after his regional government failed to send out emergency warnings until 12 hours after Spain’s meteorological agency issued its first red alert.
Mr Mazón ordered the swelling number of volunteers wanting to help with the clean-up operation to return to their homes on Friday.
The anger is palpable and trade unions have already called on Mr Mazón to resign, as Valencia opened a temporary morgue to deal with the dead.
Valencia resident Hector Bolivar, 65, questioned why a text message alert was only sent out at 8pm when the heavy rain had begun several hours earlier.
Carmen Molina, 55, another resident, said as tears rolled down her cheeks: “I can be grateful because I’m alive but that doesn’t take away the responsibility of those people that in order to achieve votes, they tell us they will be with us because in the hour of truth, they are not.”
Lorena Silvent, the socialist mayor of the town of Catarroja, said the regional government had not given them enough resources.
“They are not up to what is needed in Catarroja at a critical moment like this,” he said.
At first, Mr Mazón, a member of Spain’s conservative Partido Popular (PP), tried to pin the blame on Pedro Sánchez and his socialist government.
But as the death toll continued to climb on Friday as the rescue and clean-up operations continued, the evidence was building against the 50-year-old regional leader.
He had plenty of warning that the storm, caused by the clash of cold air from the north moving over warm Mediterranean waters, was coming.
On Monday lunchtime, Valencia’s interior ministry sent out a press release warning of the extreme weather.
However, Mr Mazón decided to press ahead with every single one of his scheduled engagements on Tuesday.
There were budget talks with business leaders and the launch of a new artificial intelligence-powered online healthcare assistant, the Politico website reported.
He also picked up the sustainable tourism award, an ironic move as climate change is said to have exacerbated the “cold drop” storms that devastated Valencia.
A photo was tweeted at noon showing Mr Mazon with his certificate.
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To make matters worse, at a press conference one hour later, Mr Mazón predicted torrential rain would ease by 6pm. He has since deleted a social media post repeating the prediction.
It has also now emerged that Mr Mazón had assumed personal control of the Integrated Operational Coordination Centre set up on Tuesday afternoon, which has raised further questions over his leadership in the crisis.
Spain’s meteorological agency (AEMET) issued an orange alert for the Valencia region at 6.42am on Tuesday, October 29. At 7.36am the warning was updated to the maximum red level, which means a risk to life.
At 8am AEMET warned of “extreme” danger from more than 90 millimetres of rain forecast to fall within a single hour and urged locals to remain at home.
But Mr Mazón’s regional government did not issue a warning telling residents to stay indoors until 8.12pm, far too late to prevent people from being trapped by the waters and after rivers and ravines were already overflowing.
In one area, 45 minutes earlier, a bridge had been swept away by the raging waters. Trains from Valencia to Madrid and Barcelona had been cancelled at 7pm.
By 7.15pm it was dark, and thousands of people were trapped on roads and in shopping centres but the alarm, and its recognisably discordant tone, were still not sent to residents’ smartphones for almost another hour.
The error has been compounded by Mr Mazón’s efforts to dodge the blame. His government has claimed it was up to AEMET, which falls under the government’s control, to issue the warnings and to ensure the correct protocols were followed.
The regional government said its 8pm message was not as the start of the alert, but only as one more element of communication and it was when the Security Forces and Corps and the emergency services recommended it.”
This was flatly contradicted by Spain’s interior ministry, which said that civil protection plans were the responsibility of the regional government.
Meteorologist Albert Martínez, from The Weather Channel in Spanish, compared the sluggish response in Spain to the United States.
“Hurricane Katrina was a turning point in the United States,” he said. “I asked myself: ‘Why aren’t the media cutting off the programming like they do in the United States to alert the population?’
“I saw that the alert arrived a little late. In the United States, constant alerts go out for anything, tornadoes, crimes committed in the area,” he added.
On Friday, Mr Mazón was backpedalling furiously. He put on a show of unity with Mr Sánchez in a joint press conference where both men refused to take questions.
“Thank you very much for your closeness and your quick response,” he told Mr Sánchez.
“Any further resources you need, the Government of Spain is here. We are not going to leave the Valencians alone,” the prime minister responded.
“We will support by land, sea and air for as long as it takes to find all the missing people.”
But it was already too late to prevent the tragedy from becoming another battleground in polarised Spain’s culture war between Left and Right.
After travelling to the affected areas, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo attacked Mr Sánchez’s coalition of Left-wing parties.
“We are the majority in the Senate and the Government has not informed us of anything,” he said. “In a national emergency, in addition to humanity, collaboration is needed and we have not been informed. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing.”
Mr Feijóo has blamed the federal government-controlled AEMET and other state agencies for the high death toll, placing Mr Mazón in contradiction with his party chief and an even more invidious position.
In a doomed effort to paper over the divides, and the growing sense of chaos attached to his government, Mr Mazón tweeted, “I thank Núñez Feijóo for his support at all times during these days of so much pain.
“As he has said, 112 and CECOPI are managing this situation with the information offered by state agencies.”
