The children of Michael Mosley, the missing British doctor, have flown to Greece to join the search for their father.
Alexander, Jack, Daniel and Katherine are understood to be planning to retrace his last known steps in a bid to help discover what happened to the 67 year old.
Their decision to join the search came as every available coastguard officer, as well as firefighters, divers and a specialist police dog unit were scouring the tiny Greek island of Symi for any sign of Dr Mosley.
An officer on the island told The Telegraph on Friday that about 30 coastguard personnel had been committed to looking for the father-of-four.
Dr Mosley vanished on Wednesday on a walk from St Nicholas Beach, known in Greek as Agios Nikolaos, to the small holiday resort of Pedi.
It remains unclear whether he may have fallen into the sea while hiking along the coast or remains on land.
The dog unit and a squad of around half a dozen uniformed and non-uniformed police officers were seen patrolling Pedi beach on Friday morning as the search for Dr Mosley entered its third day.
The officers were seen speaking with locals in restaurants and shops along the waterfront of the small village.
The search party combed the hills around the beach, where he was last seen on Wednesday afternoon at 1.30pm.
Arthur, Dr Mosley’s brother, told The Telegraph on Friday that Dr Mosley’s three adult sons and one daughter had flown to Greece to help with the search.
He said: “We are very shocked and perplexed by what has happened to him. His children have now all gone to Greece and are walking the path trying to find him.
“We know as much as what the police and the media has reported, but we are closely following the situation, and hope that there’s a good outcome. Unfortunately, when you get to my age or his (Michael) age, accidents like this can happen.”
Arthur, who lives in the Cornish village of Flushing, said that when he last spoke to his brother he had been on his way to Greece and in “good spirits” and was looking forward to his trip.
He said: “The family are naturally hoping for a good outcome.”
The mayor of the island, which is part of the Dodecanese chain near the Turkish coast, said it was “impossible” he was still in the area because it was small and easy for rescuers to check.
“It is a very small, controlled area, full of people,” said Eleftherios Papakalodoukas. “So if something happened to him there, we would have found him by now,” he told the BBC.
He said he thought it probable that Dr Mosley had either “followed another path” or had somehow slipped and tumbled into the sea.
Drones, sniffer dogs, helicopters and emergency personnel are taking part in the search.
Conditions are challenging – the island has been hit by a heat wave, with temperatures up to 48C forecast on Friday. On the day Dr Mosley disappeared, temperatures reached 40C.
One woman who lives in the area said Dr Mosley’s disappearance was “strange” as the path he was thought to be on was relatively easy.
“It’s a quiet place … if you see the map of the area it’s a clear path, it’s nothing dangerous, many people go every day, every few minutes, that’s the reason it’s very strange because it’s a clear path.”
A friend of the person Dr Mosley was staying with said she was struggling to understand how anyone could get lost in that part of the island.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive programme, she said: “It’s a road that sort of heads over the mountainside but it’s been recently widened and there is only one route, so it’s not possible to lose your way.
“So, it is probably a 20-minute walk down the side of the mountain, but it’s not overly rugged or something that would be seen to be too dangerous, it’s something that tourists do every day in the summer.
“I’m having trouble understanding how you could get lost.”
The alarm was raised by Dr Mosley’s wife, Dr Clare Bailey, 62, after he failed to return from his walk on Wednesday.
The last known photograph of him shows him in blue shorts, a blue shirt and blue baseball cap, standing on a beach and holding a small rucksack.
An appeal was launched on a local Facebook page for expatriates for any information as to his whereabouts. “Have you seen this man? He set off to walk from St Nicholas Beach at about 1330 and failed to make it home,” it read.
Dr Mosley is a well-known face on British television and also writes a column for the Daily Mail.
He has made programmes about exercise and diet and has advocated intermittent fasting regimes as a weight loss technique.
He lived with tapeworms inside his body for six weeks after infesting himself for a BBC Four documentary called Infested! Living With Parasites.
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