US tourist Alison Mackenzie has now been missing for over 72 hours - and there are grave concerns for her wellbeing tonight.
You'll remember that MacKenzie along with her boyfriend were on a three-day cruise with Ragamuffin tours. They had stopped to camp for an overnight at Rendezvous Caye when she mysteriously disappeared sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning.
Since then, the tour company, police, and the Belize Coast Guard have launched widespread searches to find her.
And today, Lieutenant Roque Canul told us that after 24 hours, rescue missions become recovery missions.
And while the Belize Coast Guard believes that the possibility of finding Alison MacKenzie alive is now minimal they are still expending maximum efforts in the search.
Lieutenant. Roque Canul, Operations Officer, Belize Coast Guard
"We started or resumed the search this morning at around 7 in the morning the areas of change because as the time elapses the search area has gotten bigger. So right now we have extended our searches all the way to Alligator Caye which is further south of where the incident occurred. Now we have two units which are comprised of the unit that has been searching since Saturday and now we've incorporated the unit that is based out at southern Caye so we have two units searching."
Reporter
"How do you go about determining where to widen your search?"
Lieutenant. Roque Canul
"That's the biggest I would say the biggest issue right now because from when the incident occurred we didn't get a specific area as to the direction that the person took."
"Our focus is the search area or the areas where we are trying to focus all our efforts in order to find the person."
"Based on the time that has elapsed and the wind direction the current direction hence the reason I'm coming up with different search areas and those are the areas that we're targeting at this point."
Reporter
"Are the missing person's boyfriend or any other members of her family involved in searches at this time?"
Lieutenant. Roque Canul
"We are doing operations on our own however I also understand that there are other units, civilian search units, that are out there to include the tour operators of the tour agency, Raggamuffin, so probably he is along with them out there searching."
"The longer or the more time passes the chances of survival decreases so we are talking about perhaps three days now and so the chances of finding her alive become very very minimal."
"We're still putting a lot of effort or we're doing a lot of work in those areas and we're trying our best to find her."
The Coast Guard's experience is that the buoyancy of a body is greater in saltwater than in freshwater. A victim of drowning would, bend expected to float up 48 hours after a drowning.
Email
Print