Credit: Kaitlyn Carpenter
A house has been swept away by flash floods in southern New Mexico as the state struggles to cope with extreme weather.
Video posted on social media showed the white single-storey home smashing into trees as it was dragged down a debris-filled stream in the Rio Ruidoso mountain village.
The water level rose more than 20ft (six metres) in an hour following heavy rainfall, according to the US National Weather Service (NWS).
At least three people, including two children aged four and seven, were killed by the floodwater, which surged to a level 5ft higher than the previous record, according to local officials.
The house is carried away by flash flooding in Ruidoso, New Mexico on July 8 – Kaitlyn Carpenter/AP
At least three people have been killed following flash floods in Ruidoso, New Mexico – Kaitlyn Carpenter/AP
Lynn Crawford, the Ruidoso mayor, said there were reports of mudslides and gas leaks at homes that had been washed away or damaged, adding that officials were unable to confirm how many homes had been lost.
Speaking on a local radio station, Mr Crawford said: “It got ugly really quick”.
Emergency teams carried out at least 85 swift-water rescues in the Ruidoso – which has a population of 7,600 – in the Sierra Blanca mountain range, reaching people trapped in their homes and cars, said local officials.
The disaster comes after flooding in the neighbouring state of Texas left at least 111 people dead with a further 161 still missing from a single county, local officials said.
The village is at high risk for flash-flooding due to charred soil left behind by last year’s wildfire – Kaitlyn Carpenter/AP
The NWS had warned that two “burn scars” around Ruidoso left the mountain village at high risk for flash-flooding, as the charred soil left behind by last year’s wildfires reduced the soil’s ability to absorb water, making it “as water-repellent as a pavement”.
Southern New Mexico was ravaged by two wildfires last June, when fast-moving blazes burned approximately 25,000 acres and destroyed hundreds of homes.
Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico’s Democratic governor, said the state has mobilised “every resource we have”, but said Ruidoso “needs federal support to recover from this disaster”.
“We’ve watched Texas receive the federal resources they desperately needed, and Ruidoso deserves that same urgent response,” she wrote on social media.
