Body found after car washed away - 25th Apr 2009 8:49pm
Body found after car washed away
The body of a 20-year-old man has been found by emergency services searching for the three occupants of a car swept into a stream in Cornwall.
The Volvo saloon car was washed away after heavy rain in the early hours in Zennor, between St Ives and St Just.
A 26-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl are still missing.
Firefighters, coastguard teams, police, officers using dogs and a Royal Navy helicopter from RNAS Culdrose have been involved in the search.
Devon and Cornwall Police said the man's body was found at about 0700 BST.
The incident reportedly happened at about 0130 BST near the B3306.
'Atrocious' conditions
The alarm was raised by a 20-year-old man who said he had managed to get out of the car before it was washed away, but three other people were unaccounted for.
About an hour later a green Volvo S70 saloon was found submerged and full of water.
The Volvo was a taxi but police have confirmed it was not being used as a taxi at the time.
Supt Martin Orpe from Devon and Cornwall Police said search teams would continue looking until nightfall.
"We're still searching for two people who are missing from this particular vehicle," he said.
"Four people were in the vehicle when it went into the river at some time in the early hours of this morning.
"Weather conditions were atrocious down here, with very heavy rain the river was high and for some reason the vehicle went into the stream."
Mr Orpe described the events of early morning as "tragic, absolutely tragic".
"There's four people out for an evening and they've come back and we've ended up in the situation we're in so we really do feel for all the families in relation to this.
"We're doing the best we possibly can to look after the families involved and to try and find the two missing people from this vehicle."
THE BBC