Houston flooding: Two Indian students still critical, those marooned are safe

Tropical storm Harvey continued to batter southeast Texas with rain and floods, leaving at least nine people dead and submerging highways, houses and entire neighbourhoods in the US’ fourth-largest city in Houston.

The condition of two Indian students of Texas A&M university remained critical on Monday but the 200 others marooned 100 miles away in Houston were safe and supplied with fresh food supplies, as heavy rains continued to pound the state of Texas for the fourth day and the death toll went up to nine.

People are rescued from a flooded neighborhood after it was inundated with rainwater, remnants of Hurricane Harvey on August 28 in Houston, Texas.(AFP)

Indian officials were helping families and relatives of the A&M students reach them as urgently as they could, and also reached the students in Houston bringing them truckloads of food supplied by the Muslim Association of Greater Houston, who made the first drop, and the Swaminarayan Temple.

“For now the they are staying where they were as the water level had receded there and power supply had resumed,” said Indian consul general Anupam Ray, who reached them at their apartments where they had found themselves marooned earlier by rapidly rising water and spent hours reassuring them.

Nine people have died so far because of the storm that hit the Gulf Coast in Texas on Friday as category 4 Hurricane Harvey. It had since been downgraded to a “tropical storm”, which has pummeled the state with unprecedented rainfall, flooding hundreds of thousands homes and businesses.

President Donald Trump, who is expected to tour some of the affected areas on Tuesday, told reporters, “I look very much forward to it. Things are being handled really well. The spirit is incredible, of the people.” He warned that the adjoining state of Louisiana could be impacted as well.

Louisiana was the worst hit of the seven states by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caught the administration of then president George W Bush utterly unprepared for the devastation it caused, killing upwards of 1,800 people, and then failing to respond to it adequately. Bush never recovered from it.