96 fatalities alone were found in the most affected district of Kerr, including 36 children, as the local chief of police Larry Leitha said in front of journalists. The Texas governor Greg Abbott emphasized that the list of victims could be longer.
After heavy rainfall, the water level of the Guadalupe River rose meter -high last week on Friday. In the popular holiday region, many people had campaigned on the river bank on the long weekend of the US National Day. A Christian summer camp was also flooded, in which around 750 girls were at the time of the flood. Many were surprised by the flood during sleep.
At least 27 participants of the Camp Mystic holiday camp died. Five participants and one supervisor were recently missing, as Leitha announced.
More than 2,000 emergency services are involved in the search and salvage work. Helicopters, drones and detection dogs are also used. Sludge, rubble and sometimes dense vegetation make the search for the flood victims difficult.
Many private individuals also searched for missing people. In the city of Hunt, 24-year-old Javier Torres dug through the mud in search of his grandmother. As he told the AFP news agency, he had previously discovered the corpses of his grandfather and two girls who had apparently been washed up by the river.
President Trump wants to visit the disaster area in Texas together with his wife Melania on Friday, as he announced this week. He had spoken of a century disaster.
After the flood, the US president came into criticism for his cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) and the US climate protection authority NOAA. The spokeswoman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, described it as “disgusting lie” to blame Trump for the consequences of the floods.
Many meteorologists see responsibility for local authorities that NWS warnings have not forwarded in time. Police chief Leitha said that the open questions had to be “answered”. However, there will only be an investigation after the disaster operation has been completed.
A man and two children died in the village of Ruidoso on Tuesday in a flood of falls in the state of New Mexic west of Texas. According to scientists, climate change means that extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods become more frequent and more violent.
