Texas flood death toll hits triple digits; tally of missing tops 180

The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing.

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According to figures released by Governor Greg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades.

The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin.

The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Mr. Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air.

The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished.

Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Mr. Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp.

As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as “flash flood alley,” the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22.

But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum.