was last seen by his grandmother<\/a> on September 27 playing on a mound of dirt outside a sprawling sheep station in South Australia’s Mid North.<\/p>\nHis disappearance sparked intensive searches spanning almost 500sq km by hundreds of team members using aerial support and mounted units.<\/p>\n
Search teams returned to the remote property yesterday, focusing on six mine shafts near the Oak Park Station area, 40km south of Yunta, using specialist officers.<\/p>\n
The search of the uncovered and unfenced shafts located between 5.5km and 12km from the homestead was set to last up to three days.<\/p>\n
But police said today it was complete after the mine shaft inspection did not find any trace of the child.<\/p>\n
“The inspection of the mine shafts… did not locate any evidence to assist in the investigation into Gus’ disappearance,” a police statement said.<\/p>\n
“Several of the shafts were relatively shallow and could be visually inspected but the remainder were up to 20m deep and specialised equipment was required to complete the searches.”<\/p>\n
The area where the mine shafts were had not previously been searched, with authorities saying they were unaware they existed. <\/p>\n
“The family of Gus have been advised of the results of the renewed searching and are being supported by a victim contact officer,” police said.<\/p>\n
Police vowed to continue the search until every avenue had been explored and on Wednesday, did not rule out returning to the property as the investigation continued.<\/p>\n
The mine search is the first since authorities drained a dam in late October, ruling out the possibility Gus had drowned.<\/p>\n
It took police about three-and-a-half hours to drain 3.2 million litres of water from the 4.5m-deep dam, which is 600m from the homestead.<\/p>\n
The initial 10-day air and ground search for Gus was one of the largest South Australia Police had undertaken.<\/p>\n
A four-day search within a 5.5km radius of the homestead in early October also concluded without any evidence before authorities opted to drain the dam.<\/p>\n
Aerial imaging within a 10km radius of the homestead had also been taken.<\/p>\n
The family expressed their devastation over Gus’s disappearance in a September 30 statement.<\/p>\n
“This has come as a shock to our family and friends, and we are struggling to comprehend what has happened,” it said.<\/p>\n
“Gus’s absence is felt in all of us, and we miss him more than words can express. <\/p>\n
“Our hearts are aching, and we are holding onto hope that he will be found and returned to us safely.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An underground search of abandoned mine shafts has failed to find any trace of a four-year-old boy who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-154367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}