Video: Drone footage shows devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in Texas

Torrential rain from Harvey hit areas more than 240 km away, swelling rivers upstream and causing a surge that was heading toward the Houston area.

A drone footage released by the CNN showed an aerial view of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in the US state of Texas.

The downtown skyline is reflected in the flood water at Buffalo Bayou Park after Hurricane Harvey inundated the Texas Gulf coast with rain causing widespread flooding, in Houston. (Reuters Photo)

The video shows ravaged buildings, which are reduced to mere skeletons, and scores of houses and vehicles subemrged in water.

Hurricane Harvey sent devastating floods pouring into the nation’s fourth-largest city Houston on Sunday as rising water chased thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground and overwhelmed rescuers who could not keep up with the constant calls for help.

A car is surrounded by floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey in Point Comfort, Texas.

Volunteers joined emergency teams to pull people from their homes or from the water, which was high enough in places to gush into second floors. The flooding from Harvey, which made landfall late Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and has lingered dropping heavy rain as a tropical storm, was so widespread that authorities had trouble pinpointing the worst areas. They urged people to get on top of their houses to avoid becoming trapped in attics and to wave sheets or towels to draw attention to their location.

A rescue helicopter hovers in the background as an elderly woman and her poodle use an air mattress to float above flood waters.

Harvey came ashore late on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years and has killed at least two people. It has since sat in the same general area around Texas’ Gulf of Mexico Coast where it is forecast to remain for several more days, drenching parts of the region with a year’s worth of rainfall in the span of a week.