Two children were killed when a hillside collapsed along a river in northern California, which has been hit by a series of winter storms.
The Shasta county sheriff’s office said in a statement that the two victims were caught in debris that came down from a hillside near Shasta dam on Thursday morning and had fallen down the hillside. They were pronounced dead at the scene, the office said.
Their names and ages have not been released.
Numerous first responders, including the sheriff’s dive team, rushed to the scene about 200 miles (322km) north of San Francisco, the statement said. Dam operators temporarily reduced water releases from the dam during the search.
It was not clear if the victims fell into the water, as initial local media reports indicated. Calls to a sheriff’s spokesperson were not immediately returned on Friday.
The sheriff’s office said the involved agencies are investigating the incident.
Northern California is recovering from several severe winter storms that have hit the region in recent weeks and have saturated grounds. The storms have pummeled communities up and down the state, causing flooding, mudslides and downed trees in some areas. Several rivers broke through their banks.
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The most recent of the storms, which hit earlier this week, brought more than 4in of rain to the area where the hillside collapsed, according to the National Weather Service.