Sharjah24 - Reuters: More than 40 people have been reported unaccounted for by loved ones after floodwaters swept a riverfront Appalachian community in southwestern Virginia on Wednesday, triggered by heavy rains in the area, local authorities said.
As many as 18 search-and-rescue teams, including swift-water rescue crews, were dispatched to the area in and around Whitewood, Virginia, early in the day, Buchanan County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Eric Breeding told reporters.
Well over 100 houses in the area have been damaged, and many roads and bridges had been washed out by mudslides and high water, a Virginia state emergency management official told the same news briefing, carried by local television station WCYB, based in Bristol, Virginia.
Breeding said there were no confirmed fatalities or serious injuries so far, and that the 44 people listed as unaccounted reflected the number of individuals whose loved ones have reported their whereabouts as unknown after floods struck.
They were not considered "missing" as yet, since many were likely to have been merely left unreachable because of telephone and electricity service disruptions in the region.
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