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A 2-year-old girl was last night still missing, several hours after she was seen leaving her rural Thames home with a fox-terrier dog.
The girl was wearing two T-shirts, a nappy and pink shoes when she was seen leaving her home on Tapu Coroglen Rd, just before 7pm.
Search and rescue volunteers were scouring the area 4km north of Tapu and 16km north of Thames.
A specialist search dog trained to track in bush was being sent from Hamilton.
Peter Joule of the Tapu Motor Camp said a helicopter had been hovering with a search light since about 8.30pm, concentrating on an area around a local beach. Grant Ostermann of the Tapu Creek Caravan Park, estimated the helicopter was circling in a 10km radius.
