SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) -- Four children from a church camp were among seven people found dead after mudslides ravaged a canyon recently burned bare in the San Bernardino Mountains, officials said Saturday.
The children ranged in age from 9 to 17, said San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Cindy Beavers. A 30-year-old was also found dead near the camp. The bodies two other adults were found at another campground about 5 miles away.
In Waterman Canyon, where the children's bodies were found, emergency crews continued working their way through the mud-covered debris of Saint Sofia Camp in a search for nine people still missing.
``We're still hopeful at this point that we will find someone alive,'' Beavers said. ``At this point, it's still a search and rescue.''
Twenty-seven people, many of them immigrants from Central America, were believed to have been celebrating Christmas with the caretaker at the Green Orthodox camp when the mudslide roared through, burying buildings under several feet of debris-filled mud and sweeping two cabins away. Fourteen people were rescued, but several children remained missing.
Saturday morning, the camp was a muddy, gray landscape strewn with boulders and uprooted trees that had been swept down the canyon following a downpour that had loosened ground once stabilized by vegetation the fall wildfires had devoured.
Some buildings remained standing. Others were partially buried.
Next to a small creek, about 50 yards from the caretaker's home, had been a children's playground with swings and climbing bars, said Perry Skaggs, of St. Sophia Cathedral. If the children were out there playing when the mudslide began, they likely wouldn't have had a chance, Skaggs said early Saturday.
One child missing from the camp was swept away with her mother as her father watched, helpless to save them, the girl's aunt said. Gilberto Juarez had grabbed his 3-year-old daughter, Stephanie, but he couldn't reach his wife, Rosa, or 7-year-old Katrine.
``He said he helped the little girl up and when he turned they were gone, the water had risen too much and had swept the cabin away,'' said Juarez's sister-in-law, Mildred Najara. ``They became separated when the water rushed in.''
George Monzon, the caretaker who lived at the camp with his wife and two children, was also among the missing, said the Rev. John Bakas, dean of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles.
Many of those visiting Monzon were Guatemalan immigrants who belonged to a San Bernardino church, Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia, and nearly all the missing children were Sunday school students, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
Two other bodies, a man and a woman, were found near each other about a half-mile from a KOA campground in Devore, about five miles to the west, where 32 house-trailers were destroyed, authorities said. No one else had been reported missing, sheriff's Deputy Kris Phillips said.
Brian Delaney, 19, remembers the mud crashing into the KOA recreation center and trapping him up to his neck before rescuers dug him out.
``I thought I was going to die,'' he said.
He was one of 52 people rescued from the campground, at the west end of the San Bernardino Mountains. Three people were treated for injuries. The two victims were identified by county authorities as Janice Arlene Stout-Bradley, 60, of San Bernardino and Carroll Eugene Nuss, 57. Residents said Stout-Bradley was the campground manager.
Delaney was one of a number of permanent residents at the KOA campground. He said about 30 people had gathered in the recreation center because they were nervous about the heavy rain. After the power went out, rocks and other debris came crashing through the door.
Mud soon filled the center and Delaney and others broke the windows to escape.
``I tried to pull two ladies out,'' he said. ``There were kids sitting on the pool table, and the pool table was almost up to the ceiling on the mud.''
Once outside, Delaney got stuck in mud up to his neck and had to shed his clothing so rescuers could pull him out.
Associated Press Writer Gillian Flaccus contributed to this report.
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