Three Young Sisters Die in Cave-in

EAST MILTON, Fla. (AP) _ An embankment collapsed on four children while they played at a clay pit, killing an 11-year-old girl and her 10-year-old twin sisters. A boy survived with bruises.

The girls, who were visiting their father in this Florida Panhandle community for the weekend, were buried Sunday underneath clay and covered by boulders so heavy that they took several men to move.

Danny Bush, his hands caked and stained with red clay, dug deep enough to see the face of one of his daughters. ``I told her I was trying to get her out,″ he said.

Bush said when he got his daughters’ heads out of the clay, their faces were blue. Only one was breathing.

Twins Jessica and Jillian Bush and their sister, Mallory, were pronounced dead at Santa Rosa Medical Center in nearby Milton. Their 11-year-old friend Mitch Bass was treated and released from the hospital.

Mitch, the son of Bush’s girlfriend, Cheryl Bass, was playing with the girls in the pit. The children took shelter under the clay embankment when the rains and lightning came, Bush said.