Police in Portugal have been seen draining a well and clearing dense vegetation near abandoned buildings, as fresh searches got underway this week.
Madeleine, then aged three, vanished while on holiday with her family in the Algarve resort, after her parents went out to dinner and left her sleeping in a room with her toddler twin siblings.
German investigators and Portuguese police officers and firefighters took part in the searches on Tuesday, as teams used strimmers, shovels and chainsaws to clear the undergrowth and debris around an abandoned building, and drained a well using a yellow hose.
About a dozen officers focused on one abandoned building where digging was taking place, while another member of the search team cleared large rocks.
The Sun reported that investigators are also planning to use radar equipment that can scan beneath the ground.
It has been variously reported that teams will look where trenches were dug near the resort at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, at wells, ruins and water tanks, and that there are plans to examine 21 pieces of land.
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