German police focus on abandoned buildings in Madeleine McCann hunt

Searches for Madeleine McCann have ramped up in Portugal with police using radar technology and a digger to clear debris around an abandoned building a mile from where the British toddler was last seen in 2007.

- Emine Sinmaz

Yesterday, teams of Portuguese and German police officers, as well as firefighters, continued focusing on derelict structures in countryside a few miles from the resort of Praia da Luz.

The new searches for Madeleine began on Tuesday, 18 years after the three-year-old disappeared from Praia da Luz while her parents were having dinner, leaving her sleeping in a nearby room with her toddler twin siblings.

Police with specialist high-tech equipment face the daunting task of hunting for evidence amid intense international media scrutiny. The sounds of chainsaws and strimmers could be heard as investigators appeared to continue clearing areas of scrubland in Atalaia, on the outskirts of Praia da Luz.

Officers later returned to a building that was initially searched on Tuesday, and used a backhoe digger and ground-penetrating radar. The equipment is capable of scanning up to 10 metres underground.

Police also used the digger to clear rubble around the building and emptied a nearby disused structure of debris. Bricks and rocks could be seen piled outside the graffitied structure.