Search continues for missing woman
"We are also relying on the public . . . We'd ask people to check their own backyards as we don't have the resources to go door to door in the Westport area. Acting Senior Sergeant Paul Watson
Police are appealing for information about missing West Coast woman Leanne Ryall.
The 50-year-old was last seen walking south along Cobden St towards Derby St in Westport about 9am on Friday.
Her family appealed for people to keep looking on a community Facebook page.
Ryall’s sister Karen Ryall posted on the page: ‘‘The more people looking for her, the better. Look anywhere you can think of [as] she could be hurt [or] anything. She could be disoriented and not quite know where she is. She might just need to hear someone calling her.’’
Police acting Senior Sergeant Paul Watson said police needed the public’s help in the search.
A drone operator assisted police, LandSAR and the Westport fire brigade in an extensive land-based search of bush areas and tracks over the weekend.
‘‘We are treating it as a missing-person rather than a lostperson file. We have exhausted the likely search areas at the moment, but we have still got inquiries being followed up on. We still have to review the town’s cameras and her cellphone records,’’ he said.
‘‘We are also relying on the public and media to try to draw out a few more areas we can look into. We’d ask people to check their own backyards as we don’t have the resources to go door to door in the Westport area,‘‘ he said.
Watson said Ryall lived with her partner and had two adult children.
Police believed the woman was still in the Westport area, but were not ruling out the possibility that she might have travelled further afield.
It was out of character for her to be away from home without contacting her friends or family. It was not know what she was wearing when she left home.
Ryall is approximately 161 centimetres tall, of solid build and has short, wavy red-brown hair.
Meanwhile, police were still looking for missing Spanish tourist Adrian Vega Leiros.
The 28-year-old left Westport on February 27 for a seven-day tramp in Punakaiki. He was due back on March 7 but had not returned.