The Ministry of the Interior has stressed that activating and managing territorial Civil Protection plans in the event of any type of emergency “is exclusive responsibility of the regional authoritieswho are competent in the matter according to the provisions of current legislation.”
This was stated this Thursday by the portfolio headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska in a press release and “in response to certain erroneous information spread this past Wednesday.”
Interior indicates that, according to the regulations in force, when the competent bodies detect possible natural risks that may affect the population, property, infrastructure, cultural heritage and similar, they issue notices to the autonomous Civil Protection bodies, which receive these alerts. They carry out a risk analysis and evaluate their possible consequences.
“Based on these analyses, the autonomous Civil Protection authorities activate the corresponding alerts, which They may involve the activation of different plans depending on the type of risk: forest fires, seismic movements, floods, adverse weather phenomena, etc.,” he points out.
The Ministry explains that, once the regional authorities activate the emergency phase of their territorial Civil Protection plans, they can decree various operational situations.
Operational situation 1, at the municipal and/or autonomous community level, can affect one municipality or several and the direction of the emergency It is the responsibility of the autonomous community.
In operational situation 2, at the regional level, The emergency may affect more than one municipality or province within the same community and the operational direction is exercised by the autonomous authority in Civil Protection, which activates the necessary personal and material autonomous resources.
Within this second operational situation, the Interior indicates that it corresponds to the autonomous Civil Protection authorities. ES-Alert protocol management to send alerts to the population in an area affected by emergencies or imminent disasters.
In the case of DANA that has affected the Valencian Community, the sending of this massive alert to the population It was the “responsibility” of the Generalitat, “as the governments of the autonomous communities of Madrid and Andalusia already did in past emergencies of similar characteristics,” Interior has warned.
Also in this operational situation, the competent Civil Protection authority may, depending on the severity of the emergency and the availability of means, request to the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior the activation of extraordinary means of the State, such as the Military Emergency Unit (UME).
The Ministry of the Interior has called on all regional and local administrations concerned by the response to the consequences of DANA, which has affected several autonomous communities since this Tuesday, to join efforts to protect the affected population and undertake rapid reconstruction of the damaged regions.