Camp Mystic, the summer haven torn apart by a deadly flood, has been a getaway for girls to make lifelong friends and find “ways to grow spiritually.”

"Camp Mystic is grieving the loss of 27 campers and counselors following the catastrophic flooding on the Guadalupe River," the camp said in a statement.

Three days after cataclysmic floods tore through a stretch of the Texas Hill Country, officials have confirmed the deaths of 27 children and counselors who had been missing from a girls’ summer camp.

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 catastrophic flash flood killed at least 43 people, 15 of them children. The Guadalupe River that runs through the Hill Country in central south Texas rose by 26ft (8 metres) in just 45 minutes in the early hours of Friday,

Officials at a Christian girls' summer camp in central Texas said on Monday (July 7) that at least 27 campers and counselors were among those who perished in the catastrophic flooding over the July 4 weekend,