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Air and ground search intensifies for missing girls – updated

ALGONQUIN PARK, ON- Police continue to search for two missing teen girls in Algonquin Park.

16-year-olds Maya Mirota and Marta Malek have been missing since Thursday.

An OPP missing persons graphic provided on social media. (OPP Twitter)

The girls, both from the Kitchener area, were officially reported missing Friday night around 10:00pm. They were last seen on July 11th, on the Western Uplands Trail, between Rainbow Lake and Susan Lake. They had been part of a group camping in the park and both are experienced campers. They had a tent, other equipment and limited supplies.

In an updated release from the OPP Eastern Region this afternoon it has been revealed that a number of aircraft resources have been deployed in the search. An OPP helicopter began searching on Friday. A plane from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests is also assisting in the search. Members of the OPP Emergency Response Team have been brought in along with OPP Canine and officers from several detachments. 

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OPP Media Coordinator Bill Dickson said the search has intensified and that a command post has been set up in the park, though he would not reveal its location.

Park Wardens from Algonquin Park and other staff are scouring the area along with the Ontario Search and Rescue Association (OSARVA).

The Western Uplands Trail is a roughly 90-kilometre loop that one hiker online described as “having portions of uneven terrain, rocks, tree roots, up and down “multiple” meters of elevation at some points, sections are washed out or flooded or made of mud.”

One Twitter user in a response to the missing girls tweet by the OPP responded saying that she and her husband may have seen the pair on Saturday.

“I may have seen them walking or jogging along the highway in the Park heading east at about 11 am, not much later I don’t think. We were driving by on our way to Ottawa and I remarked to my husband that two women we saw were a strange pair- one very tall and one very short,” a Twitter user named Trishee Larue reported.

Dickson confirmed that the OPP is following up with all social media and phone tips.

In a description of the girls there is a height disparity of nearly a foot. Maya is described as 5′ tall with a thin build. Marta Malek is listed at 6′ tall with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair and she wears glasses.

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