Search teams plodded through muddy riverbanks and flew aircraft over flood-ravaged central Texas as hopes dimmed of finding survivors from a disaster that has claimed at least 96 lives, many of them children.
Ten girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday, as search-and-rescue personnel faced the potential of more heavy rains and thunderstorms while clawing through tonnes of muck-laden debris.
By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims - 56 adults and 28 children - were recovered in Kerr County, most of them in the county seat of Kerrville, according to the local sheriff.
The New York Times, one of numerous news media outlets publishing varying death tolls, reported that at least 104 people had been killed across the entire flood zone.
Debate also intensified over questions about how state and local officials reacted to weather alerts forecasting the possibility of a flash flood and the lack of an early warning siren system that might have mitigated the disaster.
On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed that the state would "step up" to pay for installing a flash-flood warning system in Kerrville by next summer if local governments "can't afford it".
"There should have been sirens," Patrick said in a Fox News interview. "Had we had sirens here along this area...it's possible that we would have saved some lives."
Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe was at the epicenter of the disaster. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday.
Authorities lost one of their aviation assets on Monday when a privately operated drone collided in restricted airspace over the Kerr County flood zone with a search helicopter, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing.
No injuries were reported, but the aircraft was put out of commission, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office.
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