WhatsApps Expose Lost Alert
Court reviews Camarero's WhatsApps confirming CECOPI agreed to high-floor confinement, lost in ES Alert.
WhatsApp messages from former Valencian vice president Susana Camarero show that Spain's emergency coordination center, the Cecopi, explicitly agreed to order residents to move to upper floors during the deadly DANA floods of October 29, 2024 — but that instruction never appeared in the first mass emergency alert sent to phones at 8:11 PM, according to El Diario. The court handling the DANA case in Catarroja is now examining those chats as key evidence in a probe that has already left 230 people dead.
Camarero voluntarily handed over her full message history from that day to the court. Her chats with Ignacio Grande, the regional secretary who represented her ministry inside the Cecopi, confirm that a "shelter on upper floors" order was agreed — then vanished somewhere between the meeting room and the public alert, El Diario reported.
A Critical Order That Never Reached the Public
Between 7:16 PM and 7:45 PM, Grande messaged Camarero warning that the situation at the Forata dam looked "very bad." He also told her the Cecopi had agreed to instruct people to go to upper floors of their buildings, according to El Diario. That was 128 minutes after the dam began releasing dangerous water levels.
But the ES-Alert sent at 8:11 PM — the first mass text message sent to all phones in Valencia province — only asked people to avoid travel. The life-saving instruction to "go upstairs" was gone. ES-Alert is a civil protection system that pushes urgent messages directly to mobile phones in disaster zones, Valencia Plaza reported.
Mazón Focused on Media Image While Floods Killed
That same morning, at 8:15 AM, then-president Carlos Mazón opened the regional cabinet's WhatsApp group and urged ministers to flood media with data to project, in his words, "a sense of being alert that scares you," according to El País. After that message, Mazón went silent on the chat for the rest of the day and attended a private lunch.
Mazón did not arrive at the Cecopi until 8:28 PM — after the floodwaters had already claimed most of their victims. Camarero herself told the court she "did not know exactly what a Cecopi was," though she understood it was an emergency meeting, Europa Press reported.
Victims' Families Demand Accountability Outside the Courthouse
Members of the Asociación Víctimas Mortales DANA 29-O gathered outside the court demanding that Camarero be formally charged. They argued her ministry did nothing to protect elderly residents in care homes or users of the telecare system during the critical hours, according to Onda Cero.
Opposition parties PSPV and Compromís said the chats prove the regional government put political image ahead of public safety. They called Mazón's media-management message "terrifying," Diario Público reported. Legal analysts say the evidence may shield Camarero from direct blame — since she was not in the room — but puts intense pressure on Cecopi co-directors and former minister Salomé Pradas.
What Happens Next in the DANA Investigation
The court clerk has already processed and anonymized the messages for delivery to prosecutors and the 14 legal teams representing victims, according to El Diario. The Superior Court of Justice of Valencia is now weighing whether the new evidence justifies opening a formal investigation into Mazón, who has not yet been charged due to his legal status as a former elected official.
The current regional government faces growing pressure to reform both the ES-Alert protocol and the Cecopi structure. The official death toll stands at 230. At least 1,000 pages of documents had already been submitted by the regional government — the WhatsApp chats now add a new and potentially decisive layer of evidence.
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