FILE - In this photo provided by the National Park Service is the scene of a flash flood in Zion National Park, Utah, on June 29, 2021. Authorities have been searching for days for Jetal Agnihotri, 29, of Tucson, Ariz., reported missing after being swept away by floodwaters in the park as strong seasonal rain storms hit parts of the U.S. Southwest.
Agnihotri was among a group of hikers who were swept away by floodwaters rushing through a popular hiking location in one of the park's many slot canyons. Both the National Weather Service and Washington County, Utah, had issued flood warnings for the area that day. During that same storm, the bodies of another 12 people were found amid mud and debris miles away in the nearby town of Hildale, Utah, a community on the Utah-Arizona border. A group of women and children were returning from a park in two cars when a wall of water surged out of a canyon and swept them downstream and crashing into a flooded-out embankment, with one vehicle smashed beyond recognition. Three boys survived. The body of a 6-year-old boy was never found.
Flooding has swept parts of southern Utah in and around Moab and Zion throughout the summer, causing streams of water to cascade down from the region’s red rock cliffs and spill out from the sides of riverbanks.