Revelations by the president of the Spanish region of Valencia, Carlos Mazón, have appeared to shed new light on his management of flash floods that killed 227 people and have bolstered calls for him to resign over the tragedy.
The floods struck eastern Spain on October 29th last year, with the Valencia region bearing the brunt of their force as water swept through towns and drowned people, particularly those trapped in lower floors of buildings and in cars.
The whereabouts of Mr Mazón that day have been under intense scrutiny, after it emerged he had not been in his office managing the emergency as the tragedy unfolded throughout the afternoon because he was having lunch with a journalist in a restaurant.
Mr Mazón has now said that he arrived at the meeting of the CECOPI emergency co-ordination agency at 8.28pm that day. That was 17 minutes after the Valencia government had issued an emergency alert to the phones of local people, warning them to remain indoors. It appears to contradict his previous claim that he had arrived at the meeting at around 7pm.
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“I have always said the same thing, I have never changed my version of events,” he said, when challenged about the timings.
He also claimed he was the victim of a misinformation campaign.
“Enough lies, enough of having to talk about the ‘new version of events’, enough of having to respond to made-up facts, with the only intention of criminalising me,” he said.
Several large protests have been staged in Valencia to demand the resignation of Mr Mazón, and his prosecution for negligence. He is also frequently barracked by members of the public, many of whom point to the regional government’s delay in issuing the phone alert.
[ Spain floods: calls for resignation of Valencia leaderOpens in new window ]
A judge is investigating the tragedy to decide whether manslaughter charges should be brought against officials. According to information from the probe, most of the victims died before the phone alert was issued.
However, Mr Mazón has defended his handling of the crisis and has sought to blame the national hydrographic and weather agencies and the central government, claiming that they did not provide enough information about the floods.
[ Mud-slinging spreads as Spain struggles to manage floods tragedyOpens in new window ]
Mr Mazón’s conservative Popular Party has backed him, and blamed the central government for mismanaging the crisis.
Diana Morant, leader of the Socialist Party in Valencia and Spain’s minister of science, repeated the central government’s call for Mr Mazón to be removed.
“Valencians cannot tolerate the regional president and every time he goes out on to the street they remind him of that,” she said. “They cannot take the pain caused of what happened and the pain of seeing that their political leader lies to them again and again.”
Gabriel Rufián, a member of Congress for the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), described Mr Mazón as “useless, a liar and a political zombie”.
