A desperate search is underway for a missing girl after a man’s body was found near a boat drifting in a bay in Sydney’s inner west.
NSW Police said the girl, aged seven, was the man’s daughter and confirmed she had been in the boat with her father.
“Our priority right now is to locate the seven-year-old girl,” Superintendent Christine McDonald said in an update.
“There is a major search operation underway and we are using all our resources from the marine area command, police divers [and] police aviation command in an attempt to locate the little girl.”
Police divers are among the emergency service personnel looking for the missing girl. (ABC News)
The pair are from the Westmead area, and while they are yet to be formally identified, police said the girl’s mother had been notified.
Just before 11:45am, emergency services were called to Bayview Park, on Burwood Road in Concord, after a passer-by, who was on a boat at the time, saw a man in the water.
“The police who arrived from Burwood Police Area Command boarded a vessel that was a member of the public’s and they went out to the small boat,” Superintendent McDonald said.
“And they pulled the man up into the boat that he had hired.”
‘An absolute tragedy’
The boat is being forensically examined as part of the investigation, which is also looking at whether the incident was an accident, intentional or domestic violence related.
“We are literally only hours from when we located this man, so there are several lines of inquiry currently underway,” Superintendent McDonald said.
“But can I say from the outset, this is an absolute tragedy for the family and the community on every level.”
Superintendent McDonald says officers are committed to finding the missing girl. (ABC News)
She added that police had received a call from a friend of the man expressing concern for the pair’s welfare, but that call had been made about an hour after the incident.
“I can’t tell you how committed our officers are right now to locating her,” Superintendent McDonald said.
“We are all out. We are looking in every place possible — on the foreshore, in the water. We want to locate her as soon as possible.”
Police are appealing for assistance and CCTV footage from anyone who was in the Bayview Park Concord area on Saturday morning, or on the water in the vicinity of Hen and Chicken Bay on the Parramatta River.