Madeleine in Donegal, pictured second from left in April 2007. She disappeared in Portugal two weeks later.
BREAKING NEWS: Portuguese authorities have approved Met Police plans to dig for evidence in the resort where Madeleine McCann vanished in 2007.
Madeleine’s grandparents are from Donegal, and she visited here just weeks before she disappeared.
Forensics officers will use ground penetrating radar equipment to aid the search at three sites in Praia da Luz, said Sky News.
Sky’s Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt, speaking from the police investigators’ base in Faro, described the move as a “breakthrough” in the investigation.
Last week, Kate McCann told Sky News she needs to know what happened to her daughter even if it was the “worst case scenario”.
She said: “Madeleine’s either alive or she isn’t and we can’t change that.
“Obviously our hope is that she’s alive and being well looked after but regardless of the outcome, we need to know. We all need to know.”
Madeleine disappeared from the apartment she was staying in with her parents and two siblings on May 3, 2007. She was three years old at the time she vanished.
In April, police revealed they were investigating five new cases in which young British girls were sexually abused during holiday home break-ins in the Algarve.
