Mazón, Spain's deadly floods and a blame game that implicates the state

Valencia's floods leave a political corpse: Mazón, but not only him

A year after the DANA storm that left 230 dead in the Valencian Community, public attention remains fixed on Carlos Mazón. Yet the division of responsibilities that emerges from the data is uncomfortable for everyone: the response was a disaster, but pinning all the blame on the regional president looks more like a political operation than a forensic analysis.

A scapegoat called Mazón?

There is a line of analysis arguing that Mazón is the perfect fall guy. The media present him as the sole culprit, but the chain of command in a catastrophe of this magnitude is far more diffuse. Spain's regional and central state structures overlap: responsibilities over river basins, civil protection and emergencies are split between administrations, and when the storm hits, nobody wants to own the decision.

In that reading, Pedro Sánchez also played a passive role. Criticism of the central government over the slow delivery of aid and the lack of coordination has been constant. The uncomfortable question is: if the state had risen to the occasion, would anything have changed?

The afternoon the alerts didn't add up

The most concrete case against Mazón centres on his schedule for 29 October. He is accused of not being in command from midday, of ignoring calls and of failing to issue the alert in time. But the weather data shakes the simplest narrative: AEMET (Spain's state weather agency) was forecasting 150 to 180 mm over 12-24 hours, and 700 mm fell. With a margin of error that wide, how much real room for decision did a regional president actually have?

That doesn't exonerate Mazón, but it does demand a more precise judgement. There was negligence, yes; there was no science-fiction movie.

The structural problem: a state that can't coordinate

Beyond the individual name, the debate ties into the territorial model. The regions demand emergency powers but then fail to manage them. Municipalities have obligations to clear riverbeds that they don't always meet. And the central government washes its hands whenever it suits.

The comparison with Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia, where the DANA also claimed lives, reinforces the thesis that the problem is neither only Valencian nor only personal. It is systemic. Meanwhile, the political bill is being paid by one man alone: something smells of a predetermined verdict.

And what if the real lesson is that Spain's regional system needs a thorough overhaul? The question remains open.