Texas floods: death toll rises as search and rescue turns into grim recovery operation

Residents in central Texas were observing a day of prayer on Sunday for at least 82 people killed and dozens missing in Friday’s devastating flash flooding, as a search and rescue operation for survivors began to morph into a grim exercise of recovering bodies.

Relatives continued an anxious wait for news of 10 girls and one camp counselor still unaccounted for from a riverside summer camp that was overwhelmed by flash flooding from the Guadalupe River, which rose 26ft (8 meters) in 45 minutes on Friday morning after torrential pre-dawn rain north of San Antonio.

Kerr county’s sheriff, Larry Leitha, said at a briefing on Sunday afternoon that 68 people have been confirmed dead there, including 28 children, with the search continuing for the missing girls and their counselor from Camp Mystic, along the river.

Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, said in an earlier briefing that another 10 fatalities have been confirmed in neighboring counties. Abbott said that officials were still searching for 41 known missing persons across the state.