SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Authorities on Sunday found the bodies of five more people caught in a mudslide that engulfed a church camp on Christmas, and urged people in mountain areas scorched by fall wildfires to prepare for heavy rains today that could trigger more devastation.
Two children washed away from the St. Sophia Camp were found tangled in debris miles below, in a concrete catch basin in downtown San Bernardino, said Chip Patterson, spokesman for the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department.
Two women and a man, all in their 40s, were found closer to the camp in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The grim discoveries brought the total number of bodies recovered from the Greek Orthodox camp to 12, with a baby boy and a teenage boy still unaccounted for, Patterson said. Two more people died in another mudslide Thursday at a campground about five miles away.
Search crews used a bulldozer and other heavy equipment to unearth the latest victims. Six dogs also were being used in what has become a recovery attempt instead of a rescue mission.
“It’s been several days and our hopes are not high of finding people alive,” said a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Twenty-seven people were believed to have been celebrating Christmas with the camp’s caretaker when boulders, trees and 12-foot walls of mud crashed into the camp in Waterman Canyon, an area scoured bare of vegetation by fall wildfires.
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