Two more men go missing in the Kern River

Two men went missing in the Kern River on Saturday, the latest in a string of disappearances and drownings on that river.

The first of Saturday’s disappearances was reported around 12:50 p.m. near Lake Ming Campground, 5 miles east of Bakersfield. A 32-year-old man who had been swimming had reportedly started to struggle, then went underneath the surface and did not emerge, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office said.

Last month, a Los Angeles man also disappeared in the river near Lake Ming. His body was found four days later about 15 miles downstream.

On Saturday evening, around 5:40 p.m., an emergency call reported that a man in his 30s had been swept away in the Kern River near Sandy Flat Campground, 7 miles downstream from Lake Isabella.  The last sighting of him by search crews was at 6:54 p.m. The search continued on Sunday, the sheriff’s office said.

Since the start of July, six men have drowned or disappeared in the 50-mile stretch of the Kern River between Kernville and Bakersfield. They are among 36 people — five of them under age 18 — who are known to have died or gone missing in California rivers since April; this map shows the locations of those incidents.