The search for missing Brit Jay Slater has entered its fifth day, with rescue teams focusing on three key spots across mountainous areas of Tenerife.
Emergency workers have widened the search over a 30-kilometre area in hopes to find the 19-year-old, who was last heard from on Monday, June 17. Jay had phoned his friend Lucy Mae on Monday morning, telling her he was lost in a rural area, needed water, and that his phone battery was down to 1 percent. Lucy, who had travelled with him to Tenerfie for a three-day music festival, said he decided to stay with some new friends he made the night prior.
Today, police and rescue workers wearing hard hats and other specialist mountain equipment are focusing their search in three different areas in the vicinity of Parque Rural de Teno nature reserve, where Jay went missing on Monday. They include a ravine around 100 metres below the rental property where Jay was last seen, as well as in mountains between Masca and San Jose, and Masca and Las Portelas.
A search and rescue worker told the Mirror: “We are concentrating our search in three ravines, over an area of at least 30 square kilometres. We still have hope that he’s alive - up until the last moment when the last hope is lost. We’ve been up and down but, until now, nothing. We haven’t found anything. This morning we concentrated on searching from down below up Masca, along the path until it almost reaches the ravine, at the high part, without finding anything.
“Now the second part has been this path that goes up and almost reaches Las Portelas (hills), the high part of Las Portelas trail and nothing was found either. We’ve been to the ravine to see where he supposedly took his last selfie and downward from there.” The man added: “The truth is that we feel a bit frustrated because we can’t find him. It’s so big here that it’s very difficult to search in such a steep area. But we’re doing everything we can.
He continued: “We’re waiting this afternoon for the drone units to come one more time to do a flight over the area, and the search dogs again too. It’s a very difficult area to search. Just because it’s so steep.”
Jay's heartbroken mum, Debbie Duncan, who flew to Tenerife on Tuesday, believes her son has been kidnapped and is being held against his will. She also expressed concern about Jay possibly being drunk and unable to look after himself when he disappeared. She said was worried her son "didn’t have his wits about him", adding although Jay is "not really a drinker", on the last night of the three-day rave event in Tenerife, he had been drinking spirits.
Debbie said she warned him to be careful before he headed off on his first holiday with friends abroad, but fears he may not have been able to look after himself properly.