The US government is pledging to support thousands of residents in the southern state of Louisiana whose homes were destroyed in major flooding over the weekend, US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday.

    More than 4,000 residents remain in shelters, and more than 30,000 people have had to be rescued from record flood waters, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told a press conference. The death toll from the flooding rose to 13. 

    More than 900 federal disaster officials were in the state to help, and some 86,000 people had applied to receive federal disaster aid, Johnson said. The Red Cross described the flooding as the worst US disaster it had dealt with since hurricane Sandy in 2008

Source: QNA