Authorities in US state face questions about whether they issued proper warnings in advance of rain-fuelled flooding.

Rescuers in the United States are scrambling to find dozens of children who went missing from a Christian summer camp in the state of Texas during flash floods triggered by a powerful storm, as the death toll from the disaster continues to rise.

Texas Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick told Fox News that because of the heavy rains on Sunday, the number of dead has now reached 67 including 21 children.

“We expect that to go higher sadly,” Patrick said.

Earlier, officials in hard-hit Kerr County said 850 others had been rescued in the last two days from the area, which lies about 137km (85 miles) northwest of San Antonio.

The destructive, fast-moving waters rose 8 metres (26 feet) on the Guadalupe River in just 45 minutes before daybreak on Friday, washing away homes and vehicles.

While the National Weather Service (NWS) said the flash-flood emergency had largely ended for Kerr County – the epicentre of the flooding – it warned of more heavy rain to come, maintaining its flood watch until 7pm local time (00:00 GMT on Sunday).

Authorities still have not said how many people are missing beyond 27 children from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County, where most of the dead were recovered.

Patrick said an unknown number of visitors had come to the area for an Independence Day celebration by the river. “We don’t know how many people were in tents on the side, in small trailers by the side, in rented homes by the side,” he added.

Texas Department of Emergency Management chief Nim Kidd said air, ground and water-based crews were scouring the length of the Guadalupe River for survivors and the bodies of the dead.

“We will continue the search until all those who are missing are found,” Kidd said.

Camp Mystic had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to officials. Another girls’ camp, Heart O’ the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale died in the flood, but no campers had been present as it was between sessions.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro said rescue workers had promised to “not give up until the very last person is found – either alive or their body is recovered”.

“That might be a tall order given just how catastrophic these floods were. We’re talking about a region that is dotted with hills and with canyons,” she said.

Zhou-Castro added children in the camps had been particularly vulnerable to the floodwaters, “which rose by 8 metres [26 feet] in less than an hour, overnight, as they slept”.

The flooding in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July holiday weekend caught many residents, campers and officials by surprise.

Authorities have come under increasing scrutiny over whether they issued proper warnings and whether enough preparations were made.

“A lot of questions are being asked about why there weren’t earlier evacuations,” said Zhou-Castro. “They knew there might be rain, they just didn’t know where it would hit, and when it did, it indeed was catastrophic.”

President Donald Trump on Sunday signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County.

The declaration is “to ensure that our brave first responders immediately have the resources they need. These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy with many lives lost and many still missing”, Trump posted on social media.

The weekend disaster echoes a catastrophic flood almost 40 years ago along the Guadalupe River.

In 1987, a bus and a van leaving a church camp encountered floodwaters and 10 teenagers drowned trying to escape, according to a NWS summary of that incident.

Source:

Al Jazeera and news agencies