3 Still Missing after Colorado Mudslide

Rescue teams still turned up empty Monday in their search for three men after a ridge saturated with rain collapsed, sending mud sliding for three miles in a remote area near the Grand Mesa National Forest in western Colorado, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

The men - Clancy Nichols, 51, a county road worker, his son Danny, 24, and Wes Hawkins, 46 - remained missing Tuesday after an all-day search of the lower portion of the Colorado landslide.

When a Colorado rancher noticed his irrigation ditch had stopped running on Sunday, the three men volunteered to investigate. Little did they know that a small mudslide was to blame for the water cutoff, which led to the larger mudslide that has obscured the men's whereabouts.

Needless to say the incident has shook up the 700 residents of the small town of Collbran.

"How can anybody expect or see something like this coming? Or happening like that? Cause they were just up there checking the water, afraid of losing the county road," Bill Clark, a cousin of Hawkins, said according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey suspects the slide was triggered by runoff from Grand Mesa, one of the world's largest flat-topped mountains, following two days of strong rain.

Rescue efforts have been stuck, according to the AP, because only the lower third of the slide is stable. Even at the edges, the mud is 20 to 30 feet deep, and is believed to be several hundred feet deep and about a half mile wide.

"Everyone on this mountain is praying for a miracle right now," Hilkey said.

The sheriff said the search for the missing men will include unmanned drone aircraft with heat-seeking equipment. He added that a hydrologist with the National Weather Service and a geologist with the US Geological Survey will view the site by air to determine which areas may be safe enough for ground crews to enter, RTE.ie reported.

No one else is believed missing and no homes were damaged.