FRESNO -- Relatives and colleagues of seven people killed in a horrifying collision that sent two vehicles plunging into an irrigation canal in central California struggled to reconcile their loss and raise money to bury their loved ones. Stunned family members watched as coroners loaded up a sixth body recovered from the swift, brackish waters on Wednesday -- a teenage girl found floating in the canal 10 miles from the wreck. Authorities were still searching for a seventh victim, whose body remained missing.

Six farmworkers traveling in a sport utility vehicle and a septic truck driver died Tuesday when the two vehicles collided, sweeping both vehicles and all occupants into the canal in Westley, about 15 miles southwest of Modesto, authorities said.

The California Highway Patrol said the SUV ran a stop sign and was broadsided by the truck. Witnesses told the CHP they didn't see anyone escape from the submerged vehicles.

Divers spent hours probing the water before they were forced to abandon the recovery effort after finding just five corpses in the submerged vehicles Tuesday.

They were identified as Luis Perez, 45; Eulalia Garcia, 34; Isaac Tapia, 16; Adan Martinez, 22; and Elizar Cruz, 19. Perez, who was driving the septic truck, was from Merced, and the others lived in Lodi.

The county coroner later confirmed that Adrianna Garcia, 17, of Lodi, whose body was found downstream, also died in the crash.

Relatives identified the seventh victim as Lucas Martinez, 21, who lived in Lodi with an aunt who worked by his side picking peaches only hours before the accident.

"They're saying they're still looking around to see if they can find him," said his cousin Araceli Martinez, her voice breaking. "Right now we're going to ask some friends for help and post signs in the stores to try to ask for donations to have a funeral. They're all human beings and we're here to do something for them."

Authorities were still investigating the cause of the wreck but said both drivers and the Explorer's right front passenger were wearing seat belts. The California Highway Patrol did not know if the other passengers wore seat belts.

Family members and witnesses told authorities the SUV was taking six laborers from a peach orchard south of Westley back home to Lodi, CHP Officer Mayolo Banuelos said.

Divers found Perez's body inside the septic truck late Tuesday afternoon, Banuelos said. Initial reports suggested that two people had been in the truck, but investigators now believe there was only one.

The canal runs about 17 feet deep and 100 feet wide in the area where the crash occurred, said Pete Lucero, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the 117-mile Delta-Mendota Canal that funnels water from a Tracy pumping plant to the western San Joaquin Valley.

United Site Services Inc., which owns the septic truck, said Perez had been cleaning out portable toilets in a nearby orchard before the crash, said Paige Dawson, a spokeswoman for the Westborough, Mass.-based company.

Perez had no record of accidents since he began working as a service driver in 2000, and was a dedicated employee, Dawson said.

Up to five gallons of sewage spilled from the truck into the canal when authorities hauled it up, but a spill of that volume won't pose a problem for water quality, said Frances Mizuno, assistant executive director for the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which maintains the canal.

Araceli Martinez, 24, who lost both her cousin and her uncle Adan in the wreck, said the pair had recently immigrated to California from the Mexican state of Guerrero to support their families through the money they earned picking crops. No one had worked up the courage yet to call their mothers in Mexico to give them the news, she said.

"They were such hard workers until yesterday when this accident took their lives," she said. "They just came to help their families. It's going to be hard for them knowing that their sons are no longer."

Associated Press Writers Tracie Cone in Fresno and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco, contributed to this report.

(July 17, 2008)