Landfill Combed for Missing Worker

Using specially trained dogs, sonar devices and their hands, searchers continued an extensive hunt late Thursday for signs of a disposal company worker who was believed to have been accidentally buried in debris at the San Marcos landfill in North San Diego County.

U.S. Navy officials with sonar equipment were among the more than 150 searchers at the scene, authorities said.

The worker, one of a two-man team operating a garbage truck, was last seen about 10 a.m., authorities said, as he stood behind the vehicle while it was being positioned to dump its load.

The incident triggered a massive, daylong search of the landfill, where scores of law enforcement officers, firefighters, disposal company employees, forestry workers and others painstakingly combed the trash by hand, removing debris bit by bit, alert to any signs of life.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s authorities flew down a special sonar detecting device, and the California Highway Patrol provided a specially trained search dog.

The missing man, Guillermo Ceseno, 25, an immigrant from Mexico, is an employee of Escondido Disposal Inc., said Larry van Dusen, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department.

Ceseno’s partner, the driver, was identified as Luis Romero, also an employee of Escondido Disposal, the sheriff’s spokesman said.