The China Mail - Desperate search for missing girls as Texas flood death toll rises

Local Texans joined forces with disaster officials to search through the night for the missing, including 27 girls from a riverside Christian summer camp.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Camp Mystic on the banks of the Guadalupe River, where some 750 girls had been staying when the floodwaters hit, had been "horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I've seen in any natural disaster."

"The height the rushing water reached to the top of the cabins was shocking," he said in a post on social media platform X after a visit to the site.

"We won't stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins."

The Kerr County summer camp was in disarray, with blankets, teddy bears and other belongings caked in mud. Windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned Sunday that slow-moving thunderstorms threatened more flash floods over the saturated ground of central Texas.

The flooding began Friday -- the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend -- as months' worth of rain fell in a matter of hours, much of it coming overnight as people slept.

The Guadalupe, which flows through Kerr County, surged some 26 feet (eight meters) -- more than a two-story building- in just 45 minutes.

"We have recovered 43 deceased individuals in Kerr County. Among these who are deceased we have 28 adults and 15 children," said Larry Leitha, the sheriff of the region.

Multiple victims were also found in other counties, bringing the death toll to 52 so far.

The owner and director of Camp Mystic was among the dead, according to the Kerrville website, as was the manager of another nearby summer camp.

Pope Leo on Sunday sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

"We pray for them," the US-born pontiff said following Angelus prayers in the Vatican City on Sunday.

Flash floods, which occur when the ground is unable to absorb torrential rainfall, are not unusual.

The region of south and central Texas where the weekend's deluge occurred is known colloquially as "Flash Flood Alley."

But scientists say that in recent years human-driven climate change has made extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heat waves more frequent and more intense.

- Cars, houses swept away -

Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem said the US Coast Guard was "punching through storms" to evacuate stranded residents.

"We will fly throughout the night and as long as possible," she said in a post on X.

Air, ground and water-based crews were scouring the length of the Guadalupe River for survivors and the bodies of the dead.

In Kerrville on Saturday, the usually calm Guadalupe was flowing fast, its murky waters filled with debris.

"The water reached the top of the trees. About 10 meters or so," said resident Gerardo Martinez, 61. "Cars, whole houses were going down the river."

- 'Catastrophic' -

Scientists and disaster management agencies have criticized US President Donald Trump, who was at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club on Sunday, for cutting funding and staffing at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in charge of weather forecasts and preparedness, and the NWS.

Noem earlier said Trump wanted to "upgrade the technologies" at the weather service and the NOAA.

"We need to renew this ancient system," Noem told a press conference.

When asked about claims that residents were given insufficient warning, Noem said she would "carry your concerns back to the federal government."

"We didn't know this flood was coming," Kerr County official Rob Kelly said Friday.

Soila Reyna, 55, a Kerrville resident who works at a church, witnessed the devastation unfold.

"Nothing like as catastrophic as this, where it involved children, people and just the loss of people's houses," Reyna said.

burs-st/dw

A.Sun--ThChM