The number of dead for catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 67 on Sunday, including 21 boys, since the search for girls missing in a summer camp entered a third day.
Larry Leitha, Kerr’s County Sheriff in Texas Hill Country, the epicenter of floods, said previously that the death toll in Kerr County had reached 59, including 21 children.
Leitha said that 11 girls and a counselor remained missing in a summer camp near the Guadalupe River, which broke its banks after the torrential rain fell in the central area of Texas on Friday, the holidays of the Independence Day of the United States.
A Travis County official said that four people had died from the floods there, with 13 not counted, and the authorities reported another death in Kendall County. The Burnet County Sheriff’s office reported two deaths. A woman was found dead in her car submerged in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, said the police chief.
Leitha said there were 18 adults and four children who are still waiting for identification in Kerr County. He did not say if those 22 people were included in the death count of 59.
“Everyone in the community is suffering,” Leitha told reporters.
Local Texans linked forces with disaster officials to search for the missing, including 27 girls from a Riverside Christian summer camp.
The rainwater of the Guadalupe River reached the peaks of the trees and the roofs of the cabins in the camp while the girls slept, washed some of them and left a devastation scene.
In the Kerr County camp, the blankets, the stuffed bears and other belongings ended mud covers. The windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of water.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that Camp Mystic, on the shores of the Guadalupe River, where some 750 girls had stayed when they hit the floods, had been “terribly devastated in a different way to having seen in any natural disaster.”
“We will not stop until we find all the girls who were in those cabins,” he said on a publication on the social media platform X after a visit to the site.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said heavy rains would probably cause more floods on Sunday when the number of deaths in the camp and in other places went up to at least 59.
“We hope that is higher, unfortunately,” Patrick told Fox News Sunday.
The National Meteorological Service (NWS) warned on Sunday that the storms of slow movement threatened with more sudden floods on the saturated terrain of the center of Texas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources for the first to respond in Texas after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, issued a great disaster statement, said the National Security Department in a statement.
The helicopters and aircraft of the United States Coast Guard are helping search and rescue efforts, the department added.
The floods began on Friday, the beginning of the festive weekend of July 4, since the rain of the months fell in a matter of hours, much of the night at night when people slept. The Guadalupe increased about 8 meters, more than a two -story building, in just 45 minutes.
Some of the deaths were found in the counties away from the tragedy in the summer camp. The owner and director of Camp Mytic was among the dead, according to the Kerville website, as well as the manager of another nearby summer camp.
Sudden floods, which occur when the ground cannot absorb torrential rain, are not unusual.
The South and Center of Texas, where the flood of the weekend occurred, is known colloquially as “Alley Flash Flood”.
But scientists say that in recent years the climate change promoted by humans has made extreme climatic events, such as floods, droughts and heat waves, more frequent and more intense.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended his condolences to Trump after flooding in a statement published in X.
“[I am] deeply sad for the loss of precious lives in the tragic sudden floods in Texas, the US I hope that rescue efforts are successful to save more people from this natural calamity, ”said the statement.
“Having suffered a similar incident in northwestern Pakistan only a few days ago, we can completely understand the pain and suffering of the afflicted families,” said Prime Minister Shehbaz.
Cars, sweeping houses
The head of the National Security Department, Kristi Noem, said the United States Coast Guard was “hitting storms” to evacuate the residents stranded.
“We will fly throughout the night and as long as possible,” he said in an X publication.
The crews based on air, land and water were traveling the length of the Guadalupe River for the survivors and the bodies of the dead.
In Kerville on Saturday, the Guadalupe, usually quiet, flowed quickly, its murky waters full of rubble.
“The water reached the top of the trees. Approximately 10 meters,” said resident Gerardo Martínez, 61. “The cars, the entire houses went through the river.”
Scientists and disaster management agencies have criticized Donald Trump for reducing the funds and personnel of the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration (NOAA), in charge of time and preparation forecasts, and the NWS.
Noem said previously, Trump, who was in his Bedminster, New Jersey Golf Club on Sunday, wanted to “improve technologies” in the weather and NOAA service.
“We need to renew this old system,” Noem told a press conference.
When asked about the statements that residents received an insufficient warning, Noem said “he would take their concerns to the federal government.”
Devastation in Camp Mystic
Earlier on Saturday, Sheriff Leitha said 27 children from the Mystic Camp in Kerr County flooded were still missing.
The American media reported that four of the missing girls were dead, citing their families.
The windows of the camp cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of water.
Michael, who only gave AFP His first name was looking for his eight -year -old daughter.
“I was in Austin and led yesterday morning, once we found out,” he said, and added that he expected a “miracle.”
The Obituario section of the news site of the Kerville community was splashed with tributes to the victims, including the owner and director of Camp Mystic, Dick Eastland.
The director of Heart or ‘The Hills Summer Camp, located at a mile of Camp Mystic, Jane Ragsdale, was also confirmed dead.
In another part of Texas, four people were confirmed dead in Travis County, to the northeast of Kerr, and said 13 people, said the director of the Hector Nieto Public Information Office AFP
The body of a 62 -year -old was found in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, along the Concho River, police said.
Two more people died in Burnet County, said the Emergency Management Coordinator of the area, Derek Marchio. AFPcarrying the number of deaths throughout the state to 50.
