Mayor of Torrent’s Testimony Casts Doubt on Authorities’ Account of Flood. The Mayor of Torrent testified in court that she had warned provincial authorities about the overflowing of l’Horteta. This contradicts the official version, which claimed the threat was ‘unknown’. Previously, authorities blamed state agencies for delaying information.
A new twist has emerged in the case of the catastrophic flood in Valencia that claimed the lives of 230 people in October 2024. The mayor of Torrent, Amparo Folgado, testified in court that she personally warned provincial authorities about the critical situation long before the official alert was issued. According to El País, this challenges the authorities’ main narrative that no one knew about the dangerous reservoirs overflowing until late in the evening.
Folgado told the judge that around 6:00 p.m. she called the president of the Diputación de Valencia and the provincial Partido Popular branch, Vicente Mompó, to inform him about the overflow of l’Horteta—a tributary of Poyo where the worst consequences were later recorded. At that moment, Mompó was at the Cecopi emergency management center. However, in his subsequent testimony and public statements, he did not mention this call.
The Valencia authorities and the Generalitat had previously claimed they did not receive timely warnings about the scale of the threat and blamed state agencies—Aemet and the Júcar Confederation—for an “information vacuum.” According to them, this explains the delay in issuing emergency alerts and the lack of evacuation measures in several municipalities, including Paiporta and Catarroja.
However, the testimony of the mayor of Torrent contradicts this position. She said she also contacted the emergency secretary, Emilio Argüeso, around 7:00 p.m., reporting flooding and the first fatality in the reservoir area. Folgado noted that by then, water was already approaching residential buildings, and the authorities decided to evacuate people to the safe area of El Vedat.
The official Es Alert emergency message was sent only at 20:11—over two hours after Folgado's initial call. Moreover, as the judge notes, the alert primarily concerned the threat of the Forata dam breaking, rather than the situation in Horta Sud, where the main tragedies occurred. In court, Mompo claimed that until that moment, none of those present were aware of the true scale of the disaster, and if information had come earlier, other measures would have been taken.
After Folgado's interrogation, her entourage stated that all necessary clarifications had already been provided to the court. Mompo, speaking earlier, insisted that he had not received any alarming signals that could have changed the course of events. The case materials also mention a delay in sending the emergency message and its limited content, which has already become a topic of discussion in other high-profile hearings. For example, previously the head of Utiel explained why he closed schools before the official alert and how this affected the rescue of people—more details about this in the article on the actions of the Utiel municipality during the flood.
To understand the situation, it is important to note that Torrent is one of the largest cities in the province, with a population of over 90,000, where 11 residents died as a result of the disaster. The question of who knew about the real threat and when remains central to the investigation. According to RUSSPAIN, delays in notifications and disagreements between regional and national authorities were among the causes of the large-scale consequences. In Spain, following the tragedy, there is now a discussion about the need to reform the emergency alert system and to strengthen accountability of officials for timely response to natural disasters.
