Searchers slogging through waist-high muck found seven people dead and looked for at least nine others missing after mudslides engulfed two camps in the San Bernardino Mountains in a terrifying torrent of soil, boulders and tree trunks.
The mudslides were set off on Christmas Day after a downpour fell on hillsides that had been stripped of vegetation by wildfires in October and November. With nothing to hold the soil in place, trees and rocks went roaring down the hillsides, along with the dark-brown mud.
"I thought I was going to die," said Brian Delaney, 19, who was trapped up to his neck before rescuers pulled him out of the mud that crashed into the recreation center at a trailer-home encampment in Devore.
PHOTO: AFP
Two bodies were found on Friday near the trailer camp, San Bernardino County authorities said. One was identified by county authorities as Janice Arlene Stout-Bradley, 60. Residents said she was the campground manager.
No one else was missing in Devore, said sheriff's Deputy Kris Phillips. Thirty-two trailers were destroyed.
Five bodies were found below a Greek Orthodox retreat, the Saint Sophia Camp. Twenty-seven people were believed to have been spending Christmas Day with the camp's caretaker when the wall of mud swept away two buildings on one side of the camp. Fourteen of the people were rescued on Christmas Day.
Finding people caught in the mudslides was time-consuming because victims could have been washed far down the canyon, county sheriff's spokesman Chip Patterson said.
"The area is so big. There was so much water, so much force. We're talking about a massive flash flood that has gone miles even," Patterson said.
"These folks had no warning," said county fire spokeswoman Tracey Martinez. "It just happened. According to the survivors we've spoken to they didn't even know it was coming until it was there."
"We have no reason to think we can't find survivors and I hope we will," Patterson said. "We're not even close to giving up."
In the Devore area, on the east side of the Cajon Pass running between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountain ranges, rainfall totaled 11.15cm, according to the National Weather Service. On the San Gabriel side of the pass, 21.76cm of rain fell.
On Friday, with the roads and bridges washed out, sheriff's deputies and firefighters had to hike over the rough terrain and climb over or around rocks and fallen trees to resume the search at the camp in Waterman Canyon, about 90km east of Los Angeles. The mud was 3.5m to 4.5m deep in places.
Searchers tried to find victims by poking the mud with long poles.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS