In Spain, regional governments are responsible for handling disaster response and can ask for extra resources from the central government in Madrid.
Spain’s weather agency issued storm warnings for the region from 25 October, but Valencian authorities did not issue alerts to local mobile phones until hours after flooding started.
The local councillor in charge of emergencies has since admitted she did not know there was a system for sending phone alerts.
Local media report that, as flooding started, Mazón met for lunch with a journalist and did not arrive at an emergency co-ordination meeting until 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT).
Government sources told the El País newspaper this was “irrelevant” and that Mazón was constantly informed of events.
The flooding in Valencia was caused by a Dana phenomenon – when warm, moist air meets cold air, creating an unstable weather system.
Scientists say the warming climate made the floods worse.
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