Trump visits flood-ravaged Texas amid scrutiny

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump was set to visit Texas yesterday as questions mounted over the response to flash floods that have left at least 120 people dead, including dozens of children.

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The Republican leader and First Lady Melania Trump were to meet first responders and local officials in central Texas’s Hill Country, a week after heavy rainfall and an overflowing river swept away houses, trees, cars and people.

They were due to visit Kerrville, a city in the worst-affected Kerr County where at least 96 people died.

The urgent search for more than 170 missing people, including five girls who were at summer camp, entered the eighth day as rescue teams combed through mounds of debris and mud.

But with no live rescues reported this week, worries have swelled that the death toll could still rise.

Trump has brushed off questions about the impact of his cuts to federal agencies on the response to the flood, which he described as a “100-year catastrophe” that “nobody expected”.