Biden declares state of disaster in Texas

President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas, paving the way for more federal funds to spend on helping the American state.

Electricity is returning to Texas and temperatures are rising, but some 13 million people are still facing difficulty finding clean water.

Nearly 60 deaths have been attributed to cold weather across the United States.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Biden said he had <x0fer federal assistance to boost state and local recovery efforts in areas affected by the major winter storms”.

“Help may include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover various losses to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of disaster” It says in the statement.

Several other southern states hit by snow and ice storms this week have also reported water service cuts, the BBC writes.

Bad weather has also cut off water in the town of Jackson, Mississippi homes for about 150,000 people, as well as the largest district in Tennessee, which includes the town of Memphis, with more than 651,000 inhabitants.

What's going on in Texas?

The energy network of the southwestern state is overloaded as temperatures dropped to the lowest levels in 30 years, reaching -18 degrees Celsius earlier this week.

Since Friday, about 180,000 homes and businesses in Texas still had no electricity. Among the geditgrarian temperatures earlier this week, about 3.3 million remained without power.

About 13 million people near half of the state population have faced several water utility disruptions since hundreds of water services have been damaged by freezing.