Harvey victims elderly in water

An extraordinary, heart-rending photograph shows pensioners up to their necks in water as Hurricane Harvey floods hit a nursing home in the US.

Harvey, which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, hammered Texas as emergency crews rescue people from their homes and cars as the flood waters rise.

The devastating photograph captured elderly people in a care home filled deep with water, rising above chairs and other furniture.

They are captured clinging onto their belongings in the image thought to be from La Vita Bella in Dickinson, Galveston County.

Many of the people who live there are believed to use wheelchairs and oxygen tanks.

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According to the New York Daily News , the trapped patients were airlifted to safety on Sunday.