Shovels, pickaxes and an abandoned farmhouse: Inside the new search for Madeleine McCann as police race against time
Swinging pickaxes into the hardened ground and clearing piles of rocks and rubble, the dozen or so police officers began work on Tuesday in temperatures that later reached 20C.
Gathered on a remote area of clifftop scrubland a few miles from the Portuguese resort Madeleine McCann vanished from 18 years ago, one team dug into the earth next to an abandoned farmhouse under the watchful gaze of nearby journalists.
Other officers cleared undergrowth and debris around nearby buildings, while a fire crew pumped water from a disused well before appearing to use a winch to check the site.
Almost two decades since Madeleine disappeared from Praia da Luz without trace, it’s here, in the barren countryside nearby, where police hope to finally find answers in the mystery of what happened to the then three-year-old girl.
Investigators are reported to be acting on a tip-off and hope to find evidence of her body or clothing.
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It was claimed they would be using ground-penetrating radar to help narrow their search, but on Tuesday, crews were seen using shovels, pickaxes and chainsaws, as well as a pump to drain the well, as they battled rubble and dense vegetation in the search for clues.
The latest efforts come as German police face a race against time to find concrete evidence linking her disappearance to their only suspect.
German national Christian Brueckner, 47, is being investigated over the disappearance and murder of the British toddler in 2007, although he denies any involvement. He is due to be released from prison in September as his seven-year term for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz in 2005 comes to an end.
Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, who have not commented on the latest searches, last month vowed to leave “no stone unturned” in their fight for answers as they marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance and what should have been her 22nd birthday.
On Tuesday, the fresh searches were focused on the abandoned farmhouse and other derelict buildings in the rural area of scrubland off a scenic coastal path stretching between Lagos and Atalaia, near a cottage where Brueckner used to live.
“Following Brueckner’s trial last year someone contacted them with theories on where anyone who took Madeleine might have dumped her, or her clothes,” an investigation source told The Sun.
“They told cops about trenches that were dug in Praia at the time Madeleine disappeared – and the house where Brueckner had lived on the edge of the village.”
As many as 30 officers could take part in searches of up to 21 locations over the next three days.
