A JUDGE investigating the handling of the October 2024 Valencia flood disaster has raised the official death toll to 232 people.
It’s a second change within two months, after Catarroja judge, Nuria Ruiz, in July included a man who suffered a heart attack at his Benestusser home on October 29.
Judge Ruiz has now added a Guadassuar resident with chronic respiratory failure who was left without the oxygen she needed after her home was flooded and electricity cut.
JUDGE NURIA RUIZ
The elderly woman was rescued by firefighters and neighbours at around 12pm the following day on October 30.
She was initially transferred to a residence in Guadassuar and later taken by ambulance to Alzira’s Hospital de La Ribera.
Unfortunately, she subsequently passed away on November 6.
An autopsy said the interruption of oxygen therapy and mechanical ventilation caused by the disaster acted ‘as a triggering factor of the acute respiratory decompensation that led to her hospital admission’.
In a ruling made on Wednesday, Judge Ruiz said there is a ‘causal relationship’ between the break down of the oxygen supply, which leads ‘inescapably’ to include the deceased as a flood victim.
Meanwhile the ex-Valencia president, Carlos Mazon, has rejected a link between a delay in sending out an emergency text alert on October 29 and the death toll.
In a 66-page submission sent to the Catarroja court on Monday, Mazon’s lawyer argues that his client that he bore no responsibility for the alert.
He stated that Mazon was not responsible for adopting prevention measures and that he did not intervene in the wording or content of the Es-Alert message.
Click here to read more Valencia News from The Olive Press.
