Flash floods kill 16 in Arkansas

CHICAGO, Saturday

Rescuers searched for survivors at campsites in a remote forest in the southern US state of Arkansas, one day after flash floods tore through the area killing at least 16 people.

Survivors described a torrent of water rampaging through the Ouachita National Forest, catching campers and families vacationing in hillside cabins unawares in the dead of night.

Chad Stover from the Arkansas department of emergency management told AFP that 16 people had died, and that “there are probably about 30 people still missing.”

The rescuers halted their search in the remote region overnight, but began again at daybreak, an official with the emergency management department said. “This is still a very much search and rescue mission, not a search and recovery mission,” said the official.

However, the exact number of people missing was impossible to determine because the Albert Pike campground, which bore the brunt of the massive surge of water, had no registration system to show how many campers were present.

At other camp sites, the floodwaters swept the records away.

Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln said she would tour the flood-stricken area along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak.

Lincoln, speaking on CNN, said that the remote location of the forest has complicated rescue efforts. “There wasn’t a lot of warning time at all to anybody there,” said Lincoln. “Cell service is spotty at best. Certainly the steep ravines and steep nature of the mountains as well as the valleys where the rivers are makes it very difficult.”

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe said rainwater funneled down hillsides into the valleys where people were camping at the beginning of the busy summer vacation season, raising the river level before dawn from one metre to seven metres in about three hours.

“So it was just a horrible convergence of a number of events. And as a result of it, you see this huge loss of life,” Beebe told CNN. (AFP)