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Search for Missing Youth Being Scaled Back

Friday 14 November 2008, 3:03PM

By New Zealand Police

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ROXBURGH

Police are scaling back the search for the 16-year-old male who was swept underwater by strong currents on the Clutha River at Roxburgh on 11 November while swimming with a friend.

Police, Coastguard, and local volunteers have conducted extensive land, river and aerial searches since his disappearance in an effort to locate the missing youth. He is now presumed to have drowned.

Police divers from Wellington have also undertaken an extensive river search in the immediate area where the youth was last seen and in areas that were identified as being the most likely locations where the missing swimmer's body could be found, said Senior Sergeant Mike Cook of Central Otago.

"To date the body has not been located and police are now scaling back the search for the missing youth. There will be a daily reconnaissance search of the river as we leave the river to cycle through its normal operating levels in the hope that the changing currents, speed and water pressure will allow the river to release the body."

Senior Sergeant Cook said police and search teams, subject to weather conditions, will return to the river on Sunday with a view to lowering the river again and repeating the search.