The death toll from catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 67 on Sunday, including 21 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp entered a third day.

Larry Leitha, the Kerr County Sheriff in Texas Hill Country, the epicentre of the flooding, earlier said that the death toll in Kerr County had reached 59, including the 21 children.

Leitha said 11 girls and a counsellor remained missing from a summer camp near the Guadalupe River, which broke its banks after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday, the US Independence Day holiday.

A Travis County official said four people had died from the flooding there, with 13 unaccounted for, and officials reported another death in Kendall County. The Burnet County Sheriff’s office reported two fatalities. A woman was found dead in her submerged car in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, the police chief said.

Leitha said there were 18 adults and four children still pending identification in Kerr County. He did not say if those 22 individuals were included in the death count of 59.

“Everyone in the community is hurting,” Leitha told reporters.

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

The rain-swollen waters of the Guadalupe River reached tree tops and the roofs of cabins in the camp as girls slept, washing away some of them and leaving a scene of devastation.

At the camp in Kerr County, blankets, teddy bears and other belongings ended up caked in mud. Windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water.

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.”

“We won’t stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins,” he said in a post on social media platform X after a visit to the site.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said heavy rain likely to cause more flooding was falling Sunday as the death toll at the camp and elsewhere rose to at least 59.

“We expect that to go higher, sadly,” Patrick told Fox News on Sunday.

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

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources to first responders in Texas after US President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

United States Coast Guard helicopters and planes are helping the search and rescue efforts, the department added.

The flooding began on Friday — the start of the July 4 holiday weekend — as months’ worth of rain fell in a matter of hours, much of it coming overnight as people slept. The Guadalupe surged some 8 meters — more than a two-storey building — in just 45 minutes.

Some of the fatalities were found in counties away from the tragedy at the summer camp. 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.

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.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended his condolences to Trump after the flood in a statement posted on X.

“[I am] deeply saddened by the loss of precious lives in the tragic flash floods in Texas, USA. Hope the ongoing rescue efforts will be successful in saving more people from this natural calamity,” the statement read.

“Having suffered a similar incident in northwest Pakistan just a few days ago, we can fully understand the pain and suffering of the bereaved families,” PM Shehbaz stated.

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 metres or so,” said resident Gerardo Martinez, 61. “Cars, whole houses were going down the river.”

Scientists and disaster management agencies have criticised Donald Trump 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, who was at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club on Sunday, 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.”

Devastation at Camp Mystic

Earlier on Saturday, Sheriff Leitha said 27 children from Camp Mystic in flooded Kerr County were still missing.

US media reported that four of the missing girls were dead, citing their families.

The windows of camp cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water.

Michael, who only gave AFP his first name, was searching the camp for his eight-year-old daughter.

“I was in Austin and drove down yesterday morning, once we heard about it,” he said, adding that he was hoping for a “miracle.”

The obituary section of the Kerrville community news site was dotted with tributes to victims, including Camp Mystic’s owner and director Dick Eastland.

The director of Heart O’ The Hills summer camp, located about a mile from Camp Mystic, Jane Ragsdale, was also confirmed dead.

Elsewhere in Texas, four people were confirmed dead in Travis County, northeast of Kerr, and 13 people were missing, public information office director Hector Nieto told AFP.

A 62-year-old woman’s body was found in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, along the Concho River, police said.

Two more people died in Burnet County, the area’s emergency management coordinator, Derek Marchio, told AFP, bringing the state-wide death toll to 50.