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The massive search operation to find the body of missing real estate agent Yanfei Bao has resumed by land and air and on the water.
On Friday morning, a helicopter took to the sky near a search base at Motukarara, as teams of people on the ground painstakingly made their way along both edges of the swollen, muddy brown Halswell River, near Duckpond Rd. Surrounding paddocks remain waterlogged after recent heavy rain.
On Tuesday, police searched farmland near the lake, with officers seen walking through long grass and checking undergrowth. Several kilometres down the river, towards Lake Ellesmere, searchers have taken to the water in inflatable boats.
On Wednesday – the day police said Bao’s disappearance was being treated as a homicide inquiry – the Police National Dive Squad searched the Halswell River.
Supplied
The search for Yanfei Bao, 44, will continue on Friday.
On Thursday, the search of the river was in a rural area, several kilometres north of the lake.
Dive squad members, helped by Surf Lifesaving personnel, were searching the riverbanks from inflatable rescue boats, Reeves said.
The dive squad was using sonar technology to search beneath the surface of the water to identify anything that may be of interest.
Bao, 44, a real estate agent, was last seen about 10am on July 19 on Trevor St, in the western suburb of Hornby.
Peter Meecham/Stuff
A helicopter is used in the search for Bao around the Halswell River near Lake Ellesmere.
A 52-year-old man arrested at Christchurch Airport on Saturday with no bags and a one-way ticket to Shanghai, China, has been charged with kidnapping, and police have said further charges are likely.
On Sunday, police seized a property in Trevor St, and have been forensically examining it. Bao was due to show the house to a prospective buyer on the day she disappeared.
On Thursday, Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves said large numbers of police had been working across Christchurch in the search for Bao.
Iain McGregor/Stuff
Police investigating the disappearance of Christchurch woman Yanfei Bao are searching the Halswell River.
Reeves repeated a request for information about Bao’s silver Nissan Dualis car on the afternoon or into the night of the day she went missing.
The car, registration PKT556, left Trevor St about 12.30pm. It was found in Iroquois Place, Wigram, about 10.45pm that day, after Bao failed to pick up her daughter from after school care and was reported missing.
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