For more than 24 hours, a search party trekked through the teak plantations in Penal, looking for retired police officer Ruthven Atkinson, who walked away from his group in search of the beach on Saturday.

Atkinson, 57, was on a church excursion at the Bunsee Trace mud volcano when he went into the bushes and got lost.

His relatives gathered at the location, where hunters, farmers and villagers frantically searched the dense vegetation hoping to find him safe. At nightfall the search party used flashlights and called out his name but Atkinson could not be found.