The earth swallowed a La Conchita neighborhood Monday afternoon when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed on the beach community, killing at least three people and splintering 15 homes in a rushing river of earth and trees.

After the torrent quieted, residents ran to the mudslide, digging feverishly with hands, sticks and shovels, trying to pull neighbors and loved ones from the pile of fresh mud and broken homes.

As many as 12 people were feared missing in the slide that was at least 30 feet deep.

Eight people were taken to area hospitals, at least one in critical condition.

As a new storm battered the region, officials pulled everyone from the area northwest of Ventura about 10 p.m. Monday for fear of another slide. It was unclear when search efforts would resume, as authorities worried about the safety of the rescue workers.

Nearly 200 searchers descended on the community shortly after the 1:30 p.m. mudslide to search for survivors and recover the dead. Shellshocked residents transfixed by the trauma talked of entire families cocooned in the massive pile that obliterated blocks of homes.

"They are all gone," Steve Boyd said as he rattled off neighbors still unaccounted for. "They are completely gone."

At least seven people had been rescued and more could be trapped beneath the rubble alive.

"There is always that hope; we don't know," said Joe Luna, spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Authorities worried the additional rain could send more mud down the hillside, filling voids where people might be trapped, destroying the remaining 65 homes in La Conchita, and spilling across Highway 101.

If that happens, "there won't be a community and there won't be a road," Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks said.

It had happened before

It wasn't the first time residents had seen their homes washed away by the hillside. Many had assumed it was just a matter of time before it happened again.

Kathleen Wood lived in the seaside town on March 4, 1995, when a mudslide buried nine homes but injured no one.

Monday, she was walking down Surfside Street when the earth gave way.

"You heard what sounded like a thump. I looked up and saw dust and said here we go again," she said. "It came down like lava down the mountains. It was explosive, like there was a stick of dynamite in there."

A retaining wall built to protect the community after the 1995 slide snapped "like matchsticks," she said.

Devin Ski said he knew something was going to happen. When the slide began, "It was like a wave of earth."

Adam Stroud was trying to divert floodwater from his home when the hillside collapsed and smashed his trailer.

"We knew it was going to come," he said, "but we didn't think it was going to be this bad."

When Morgan Gealta, 15, heard the noise, his twin 4-year-old brothers ran to the door to see the commotion. Thinking it was a tornado because of warnings earlier in the day, Morgan grabbed his brothers and put them in a closet.

After the noise ceased and Morgan realized what had happened, he snatched his brothers and ran away down the hill toward the ocean.

Others grabbed whatever they could find and began to search the pile. They dug for friends, for neighbors, for parents.

"We dug with sticks, everything we could," said Dan Ski, Devin's son.

Scott Thompson found one neighbor, felt for a pulse and found nothing. He spotted another pinned underneath a car.

"We started screaming for chain saws and axes," he said.

Smashed trailers and picket fences and a Monopoly game hung in the mud. Yellow strips of insulation marbled the red dirt. The rich aroma of raw earth mixed with leaking natural gas.

Rescuers looked for the living

Three days of rain finally eased Monday afternoon as clouds hung to the hillside and rescue workers from at least 25 agencies scurried to the maw.

Paramedics stood by ambulances with doors open, waiting.

The logistics of searching for survivors and removing the dead were staggering, said Ventura County Fire Department Capt. Jon Jelle.

"We have one victim trapped and we don't know how to get her out," he said.

Rescue workers pulled one woman from the landslide and worked for 31/2 hours on another man who lay trapped between a trailer and a house that the millions of pounds of earth had splintered.

Five feet above, another man's lifeless body was pinned by what was once a motor home. It was too late for him. Workers had to look for the living..

Over and over, rescue workers shouted into the scraps of homes in the mud, "Hello? Hello?" They got no response.

Three people were rescued from the rubble when searchers dangled high-tech listening devices into crevices to hear voices or knocking, anything.

Every time a faint noise was heard, workers called for quiet. The bulldozers and chain saws and shovels fell silent for a moment, then the digging began again.

Firefighters tossed debris behind them as they worked: a microwave, a glass lampshade, half a broken door. They shoveled brown-red dirt and clawed out rocks with gloved hands.

Ventura firefighter Jeff Laudermilk stood with his back to the rescue efforts, eyeing the hillside -- in case it came again.

Neighbors shouted addresses up to searchers combing through mud where homes once stood, in hopes of finding something. Search dogs were brought in to sniff out survivors.

Juan Reynoso dug at the center of the pile tirelessly for two hours until he was 6 feet into the ground.

"There is a house down there," he said hopefully. Three hours and 15 feet later, he still had found nothing.

Neighbors, friends watch

As the cutting machines and earth movers groaned, neighbors and family and friends swarmed beyond the police tape and wondered about those they hadn't seen.

Annette Russell rushed from Santa Barbara to comfort her niece, who hadn't seen her father and four others believed to be in his house when the slide hit.

"The house came down," Tessa Womack, 14, told her aunt. "I don't know where anybody is."

Tessa stood near her aunt, watching the rescue workers, crying and wondering.

Bob Voigt said he had seen Tessa's brothers immediately after the slide, pawing at the dirt.

Then Voigt went back to his house, where he found his neighbor, dead, half buried in the muck that had slammed into Voigt's backyard.

For years, Voigt knew that when he heard the crackling of lumber he needed to run.

"I always thought I could hear the other houses go before it got my house," he said.

Man said officials failed

Drew McCrary was walking his dog at the Rincon when his house vanished beneath the rubble. He remembered the 1995 mudslide and what he recalled as promises made to keep this from happening again.

"My house is buried," he said. "Ventura County is responsible for this. FEMA said they would fix this and they didn't do anything."

A retaining wall was built in 2000 to ease the impact of a future mudslide, but that disintegrated like the homes and lives that disappeared Monday.

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks said officials had been monitoring the La Conchita hillsides since the rain began Thursday and consulted with hydrologists about the stability of the area.

"There was no indication they were at any more of a risk than any other person living under a hill," Brooks said. "Even earlier in the day, the monitors weren't showing any slippage."

Motorists trapped

A mudslide and flooding on either side of La Conchita shut down Highway 101, trapping about 200 motorists and pinning La Conchita residents in their community.

"This is going to be a long operation," said Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper. "We are not going to give up hope on anybody."

Stunned and dazed, La Conchita residents left their mournful neighborhood Monday night after authorities said they needed to head for safer ground.

Like refugees, they clung to plastic bags of clothes and muddied dogs and what possessions they could carry.

They didn't know when, or if, they would see their homes again.

-- Staff writers Erinn Hutkin, Tom Kisken, Rhiannon Potkey, Raul Hernandez, Cheri Carlson, Jessica Keating, Colleen Cason and Kim Lamb Gregory contributed to this report.