Utiel Mayor Testifies: Valencia Authorities Didn’t Warn About Disaster Scale. The mayor of Utiel told the court he decided to close schools without any warning from authorities. According to him, this decision saved lives during the disaster that killed 230 people. Valencia officials reported the risk later.
In the Valencian Community, the investigation continues into the catastrophic "dana" of 2024, which claimed 230 lives. At a hearing in the Catarroja court, the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, stated that he did not receive any official warning from the Generalitat about the impending threat. According to him, he made the decision to immediately close all schools and institutes on his own, relying only on intuition and weather signs.
Gabaldón emphasized that if not for this emergency decision, there could have been more victims among students and parents. He noted that he informed residents about the closure of educational institutions as early as 7 a.m.—ten hours before the Generalitat, led by Carlos Mazón, sent a mass alert to mobile phones. In Utiel, which first found itself at the epicenter of the disaster, six people died.
Contact with emergency services
According to the mayor, contact with the crisis management headquarters was established only after 2:00 p.m., when he reached out to Deputy Director for Emergencies Jorge Suárez and the head of the provincial fire consortium José Miguel Basset. Until that moment, the municipality acted independently, informing residents through radio and social networks about changes in the alert level.
Response and comparison with authorities' actions
Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra noted that Gabaldón was among the first to decide to close the schools—five hours before the official announcement of a hydrological alert on the Magro River. His actions were recognized as more prompt compared to the response of the Generalitat's head, Carlos Mazón, who also represented the Partido Popular.
Context and investigation details
The situation regarding notifications and the authorities' actions during the disaster has become a subject of public debate. It was previously revealed that the emergency message for Valencia residents was sent late, and its key part was deleted — this was detailed in the article about the delay and content of alerts during the flood. In Utiel, according to Gabaldón, no official information about the risk was ever received, and it was only personal initiative that helped prevent more casualties.
