Rescuers scoured a devastated landscape in an increasingly bleak mission as they searched for missing people, including 27 girls at a camp that was slammed with a wall of water in a historic flash flood.

As the floodwaters recede from Camp Mystic, a torrent of grief remains for the families of the children who died and those who went missing when flash floods tore through central Texas earlier this week.

(Reuters) -Founded by a University of Texas football coach, Camp Mystic where raging floodwaters swept away dozens of girls - killing several and leaving many others missing - was established along the banks of the Guadalupe River in central Texas hill country nearly a century ago "to provide young girls with a wholesome Christian atmosphere.