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Jay Slater: Spanish authorities remain silent on missing teen while online conspiracies reach fever pitch
In a rugged, remote corner of Tenerife, the search for Jay Slater continued into yet another day.
What was a sprawling operation last week now feels more focused, with a cluster of officers from the Civil Guard telling me they were looking at a particular ravine with a nearby water source.
Jay Slater has been missing since 17 June
Starting at 8am, the officers flanked by specialist sniffer dogs from Madrid, wandered down a path leading to a vineyard.
Gesturing to the other side of the uneven terrain, one explained how they needed special equipment to access an area that is difficult to traverse on foot.
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Jay Slater: Emergency services using drones hone in on area
Jay Slater: Specialist search dogs hunt for missing teen
Officers were flanked by specialist sniffer dogs from Madrid
Civil Guard officers said they were looking at a particular ravine with a nearby water source
It’s not just the landscape the emergency services are battling, it’s the weather too.
The changeable conditions we’ve seen in the Rural de Teno national park over the past week have included not just the high temperatures you’d expect in Tenerife, but also cloud cover, high winds and rain.
On Wednesday, as that wind fell and the rain picked up, a group of vehicles drove down into another dip in the mountains.
Drones have been deployed in the search for Mr Slater
That group included not just the Civil Guard, but teams from the Canarian government and local police.
Watched closely by the Civil Guard, the local teams deployed three drones to survey the scene for about 45 minutes.
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Helicopter search for Jay Slater
That multi-agency effort is one of the defining features of this search.
Another is the reluctance of those agencies to comment, despite the series of questions shrouding this case – fanned by online conspiracies that have reached a fever pitch in recent days.
Since Mr Slater’s disappearance, the Spanish authorities are yet to hold a news conference.
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Although teams at the scene refused to confirm whether the drones were being used in connection with a specific lead, the Civil Guard did provide a comment later that day, describing the work as “repeated hunts through ravines, roads, and trails of rugged terrain”.
As another day of this case draws to a close, Mr Slater’s loved ones will be hoping that repeated work eventually provides them with some kind of answer to where he is.
Mr Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, called on the public to pray for her son.
“I have every faith in them down on the ground and the amazing searches they are carrying out along with more amazing guys up there,” she said.
“As a family we are in a living nightmare. We have no further updates other than Jay is still missing and we are just ignoring the social media side of things.”