Catastrophic flash flooding kills 25 in Kentucky and at least a dozen missing

Catastrophic flash flooding in eastern Kentucky has now claimed 25 lives, with at least a dozen more people reported missing, as officials in the Appalachian region attempt to calculate the cost of the worst natural disaster there in decades.

The Kentucky governor, Andy Beshear, said he expected the death toll to continue to rise in the state and warned officials still could not reach certain areas.

The New York Times reported that the dead included four young children from one family who had initially sought safety on their trailer home rooftop and then a tree, before being swept away by the rising waters.

Beshear also said that it would probably take years for communities affected by the flooding to rebuild again, with the deluge coming less than a year since the southern part of the state was strafed by powerful, late-season tornados that killed 70.

Joe Biden on Friday approved a disaster declaration to allow federal assistance to be channeled to the state. But the scale and intensity of the rainfall that caused the flooding in the remote area has alarmed scientists.

While the global climate crisis cannot be held directly responsible for most individual weather events, it does make the likelihood and frequency of catastrophic events much more common.

The Kentucky flooding came days after rainfall in the St Louis region of Missouri was hit with a foot of rain that killed two people and disrupted roads and neighborhoods.