SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Four children were among the seven people found dead after mudslides ravaged areas recently burned bare in the San Bernardino Mountains, officials said Saturday.

The young victims were ages 9, 11, 17 and approximately 13 to 15 years old, said San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Cindy Beavers. An adult victim was 30.

"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."

Emergency workers continued to search for nine people, mostly children, who remained missing.

"I'm not aware of anything I could consider promising or signs of life," sheriff's spokesman Chip Patterson said earlier, adding that rescuers weren't giving up.

Of 14 people missing from a camping area in Waterman Canyon, five bodies have been recovered.

The violent mudslides were triggered Christmas Day when a powerful downpour struck the area, which had seen nearly all its vegetation devoured by wildfires in October and November.

Twenty-seven people were believed to have been spending Christmas Day with the caretaker of Saint Sophia Camp, a Greek Orthodox facility, when the mudslide roared through. Fourteen people were rescued.

Most structures at Saint Sophia Camp, built on a plateau at the upper end of the canyon, were unscathed. But two buildings on one side of the camp were swept away. Officials estimated the slide left mud 15 feet deep.

The camp is run by Greek Orthodox parishes, but there was no organized camp event on Christmas Day, said the Rev. John Bakas, dean of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles.

Caretaker George Monzon, who lived there with his wife and two children, was among the missing, Bakas said.

Perry Skaggs, of St. Sophia Cathedral, went to the campsite Friday hoping to hear word of survivors.

A children's playground with swings and climbing bars was about 50 yards from the caretaker's home, Skaggs said early Saturday. The playground was near the creek that ran through the camp and its location could help account for why the majority of the declared missing were children, he said.

A 7-year-old girl and her mother were also missing, the girl's aunt said. The missing woman's husband, Gilberto Juarez, saved their 3-year-old daughter, Stephanie, and they were among those taken to a hospital on Thursday. But he could not reach his wife, Rosa, 40, and daughter, 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."

Many of those visiting Monzon were Guatemalan immigrants who belonged to 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.

Searchers dug through several feet of slushy mud filled with boulders and trees on Friday, even using long poles commonly used in avalanche rescue efforts to reach beneath the layer of dirt.

Two other bodies, a man and a woman, were found near each other about a half-mile from a KOA camp in Devore, about five miles to the west, where 32 house-trailers were destroyed, authorities said. No one was missing there, sheriff's Deputy Kris Phillips said.

"I thought I was going to die," said Brian Delaney, 19, who described mud crashing into the KOA recreation center and trapping him up to his neck before rescuers pulled him out.

Sheriff's officials scheduled an 8 a.m. media briefing Saturday to provide an update on their search efforts.

The two bodies found at the Devore KOA campground 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.

"She was an angel," said resident Joe Plante, 62, recalling that Bradley had organized a Thanksgiving dinner to celebrate the return of the trailer residents after the fall wildfires.

"She got up and said the prayer and she was all happy we were back from the wildfires," said Plante, who lives in a trailer with his wife.

Fifty-two people were rescued from the campground, which is below the west end of the San Bernardino range. Three people were treated for injuries.

The KOA campground had a number of permanent residents. One of them, Delaney, 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.