Lorraine Williamson
Seventeen months after the DANA disaster devastated towns across Valencia province, the anger has not gone away. On Saturday, another protest moved through the centre of Valencia, with victims’ groups, unions, and civic organisations demanding accountability over a catastrophe that left at least 230 people dead and still casts a long shadow over Spanish public life.
The timing mattered. The march came just days after the judge in Catarroja leading the criminal investigation called former regional president Carlos Mazón to testify as a witness, and less than two weeks after the Valencian High Court declined to investigate him directly. That combination has given the movement fresh momentum rather than closure.
A city still refusing to move on
This was not a symbolic one-off. RTVE reported that it was the 16th protest linked to the handling of the floods, with the Government Delegation putting attendance at more than 1,500 people. More than 200 social, civic, and union groups, along with victims’ associations, backed the demonstration.
The message was direct. Protesters again called for “truth, justice, and reparation”, while banners and chants demanded that Mazón should not escape responsibility. El País reported that the march was led by a banner reading “Mazón a presó”, but the deeper demand went beyond one slogan: organisers want political and judicial accountability for what they see as a disastrous failure of emergency management.
Why the legal pressure has sharpened again
The latest protest was fuelled by a fresh development in the case. Earlier this week, the investigating judge in Catarroja summoned Mazón to give evidence as a witness in the ongoing inquiry into the flood response. That does not make him a suspect, but it does mean the court still considers his testimony relevant to understanding what happened on one of the darkest days in recent Spanish regional history.
That followed the 16 March ruling by the TSJCV, which rejected opening a direct case against him. The court said it did not see a sufficiently solid legal basis to investigate Mazón personally for criminal wrongdoing, arguing that the specific legal duty required for that charge did not fall on the regional president under the emergency framework in force at the time.
For protesters, though, the matter is far from settled. Both RTVE and El País reported that organisers want Mazón to give up his regional parliamentary seat, arguing that he should not retain the protections and privileges that come with it while the wider case remains open.
Who knew what and when?
This is one of those stories that keeps reaching beyond regional politics. The DANA flooding was not just another weather event but one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Spain, and the question of who knew what, and when, has become a test of institutional credibility. The criminal investigation is still active, and the judge has already extended it for another six months while witness statements, expert testimony, and official records continue to come in.
That is why each fresh march still resonates nationally. What began as grief and fury in the flooded towns has become a broader reckoning over warning systems, emergency leadership, and whether Spain’s institutions are capable of giving bereaved families the answers they have spent months demanding. Organisers have also linked the disaster to wider concerns about climate risk, planning decisions, and a political culture they say ignored scientific warnings for too long.
The demand now is simple: answers
Valencia’s latest protest did not change the legal position overnight. But it did show that this story is still alive, still raw, and still politically dangerous. For the families who lost relatives, and for many residents who watched entire communities shattered, the pressure campaign has entered another phase: less about immediate outrage, and more about making sure the DANA disaster does not fade into procedure, delay, and institutional amnesia.
A new witness has shifted the pressure point in the Valencia DANA inquiry: the clock