(Hunt, Texas) The balance sheet of the floods in Texas, in the south of the United States, now approaches 70 dead and will further increase, the local authorities announced on Sunday, engaged in the search for children who were missing in the disaster.
For Kerr’s only county, the most affected, “we have identified 59 deaths”, 38 adults and 21 children, said sheriff, Larry Lethia, at a press conference, stressing that this report should further rise in the coming hours.
Among the approximately 750 children participating in a Christian summer camp for girls on the banks of the Guadalupe river, the number of people who have disappeared is now 11 children and an instructor, against 27 previously, said the sheriff.
He did not immediately specify if this gap was due to the number of bodies found in the meantime.
“We are witnessing the discovery of bodies everywhere,” said the administrative manager of the city of Kerrville, Dalton Rice.
Photo Julio Cortez, Associated Press
Rescuers are carrying out research on the field of the Mystic camp, along the banks of the Guadalupe river
To the 59 dead in the county of Kerr are added nine deaths counted in neighboring counties.
These sudden floods were caused by torrential rains in the center of the state on Friday, the day of the American national holiday, which raised the waters of the Guadalupe of eight meters in just 45 minutes. It suddenly fell nearly 300 millimeters/rain, a third of the average annual precipitation.
More than 400 mobilized rescuers
President Donald Trump, who dispatched his Minister of Internal Security, Kristi Noem on the spot on site on site on Saturday, announced on his social social network that he “signed a disaster declaration for the county of Kerr” in order to guarantee help all the necessary means.
“There are currently more than 400 rescuers of more than 20 agencies deployed in the county,” said Sheriff Lethia.
Helicopters and drones are engaged in research and the Texas National Guard as well as the United States Coast Guard has sent reinforcements.
On the camp site, water has grown up, revealing a devastation landscape, with dozens of stranded cars, certain stuck in trees, and snow vegetation, AFP journalists found.
Photo Ronaldo Schemidt, agency France-Presse
A volunteer is looking for missing people.
The American pope Léon XIV expressed his “sincere condolences on Sunday to all the families who lost dear beings, in particular their daughters who were in a summer camp during the tragedy”, in a declaration in English at the end of the prayer of the Angelus.
Meteorological services maintained their surfaced flood alert on Sunday until 7 p.m. local Monday).
“Additional precipitation of 50 to 100 millimeters are possible, with isolated pockets in the area approaching 250 millimeters. It is very difficult to predict exactly where the big rains will occur in this case, ”according to the most recent meteorological bulletin.
Sudden floods, caused by torrential rains that the dry soil cannot absorb, are not uncommon. But according to the scientific community, climate change caused by human activity has made meteorological events more frequent and more intense such as floods, droughts and heat waves.
In mid-June, 13 people had perished due to floods in San Antonio, not far from the area affected on Friday, following torrential rains.
