The victims had gone to watch the flood sweeping through the town of Hildale after thunderstorms Monday night when their cars were washed off a road by a wall of water, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The dead included young children and their mothers, according to reports.
Hildale sits on the south-western state of Utah's border with Arizona, and is best-known as a centre for the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway Mormon sect of roughly 6,000 who believe in polygamy.
FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for sexually assaulting young girls he considered his wives.
———
©2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)
Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
