More than 50 people have died and dozens of children are missing in Texas Hill Country after catastrophic flooding, leaving officials struggling to explain if they had done enough to warn people of the fast-rising waters.

Local officials warned the number of dead will likely rise and were due to give an update on Sunday morning, as search and rescue teams raced to find 27 girls missing from a camp near the Guadalupe River,

Rescuers were searching for more than two dozen girls missing from a summer camp in Texas after a flash flood killed at least 50 people, 15 of them children. The Guadalupe River that runs through the Hill Country in central south Texas rose by 26ft (8 metres) in 45 minutes in the early hours of Friday,