EVERETT, Wash. — For more than five weeks, crews painstakingly sifted through mud and debris, at first searching for survivors and then for the remains of those buried by the mudslide in Washington state. On Monday, officials called off the active search, though two bodies remain entombed in the tangled pile.

At times, people dug with their bare hands, recovering 41 victims, but Steve Hadaway and Kris Regelbrugge have not been found after a hillside collapsed March 22 and swept across the small community in Oso, about an hour northeast of Seattle.

“This has been a difficult decision” because the families of the two still missing seek closure, Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Monday.

Frank Hadaway, whose brother Steve died in the slide, said he understood the county’s decision.

“The amazing thing is that of 43 people who were lost, 41 were found,” he told The Seattle Times. “So, do I have an issue? No. Reality is reality. We knew this day was coming.”

The transition was marked Monday by a gathering of about 200 firefighters, National Guard members, first responders and volunteers for a ceremony punctuated by a lone bagpiper who played “Amazing Grace.”

Trenary said officials have not given up on finding Hadaway and Regelbrugge. He said about 30 people would continue a scaled-back search of a smaller area if weather and other conditions allow. At its peak, the efforts involved about 1,000 volunteers.

An active search could resume if conditions change, allowing crews into areas that were previously inaccessible, officials said.

“To think about someone being left behind, that’s unbearable to me,” said Tim Ward, who was injured in the slide and whose wife, Brandy, died.

“The thought of Kris still being out there on that property is so solemn to me. She put her soul into that land,” he said.

The task now switches to clearing debris from the 1-square-mile slide that wiped out a small riverside community, blocked a state highway and partially dammed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River.