Mr Mazón is also under fire for saying at 1pm on Tuesday, hours before the worst of the downpour hit, that the storm front would “lose strength” by the evening.
Spain’s national weather agency had said on Sunday, two days before the catastrophe, that there was a 70 per cent chance of torrential rain ahead. It then issued the highest red alert as early as 7.30am on Tuesday.
The mayor of Alfafar, a town just south of Valencia city, also criticised the Valencian authorities for their response in the immediate aftermath of the crisis.
“They have forgotten us. We have not seen a fire truck in days; we have not seen the military emergency unit nor the Guardía Civil,” Juan Ramón Adsuara said, adding that people were “living with corpses in their homes”.
“We are getting organised but we are running out of everything.”