"Searchers found the body of a small child this afternoon, it was the body of an eight-month-old," Denise Moe, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino Sheriff's office.

She said emergency teams were still looking for an adolescent boy, but the search was suspended for the night and was expected to resume early Tuesday.

Meanwhile, authorities urged families to watch for threatening rains and be ready to evacuate immediately if conditions worsen. More potentially deadly weather was possible Tuesday.

Last Thursday, flash floods struck southern California as the usually dry region experienced its first rainy Christmas in 20 years.

Emergency service officials had warned that rockslides and mudslides were extremely likely following rains in the mountainous areas, where wildfires burned hundreds of thousands of acres of forest in October.

Avalanches of mud, trees and boulders swept into two campsites, crushing and carrying away everything in their paths.

Among the dead were two daughters of the caretaker of a Greek Orthodox Church campground, Jorge Monzon.

He had invited 23 people, many of them Guatemalan immigrants, to the campground for Christmas.

The Greek Orthodox Church said the gathering on its premises was not authorized and that invitations had been given without its knowledge since church officials were aware of the danger of mudslides and rockslides following wildfires in October.

At least 14 other people were injured. All but one were treated at a local hospital and released.

Highways across the stricken area were blocked and closed to all but rescue vehicles.

TERRA.WIRE