19 Oct 2021

Urgent search in W Australia for missing 4-year-old girl

From Checkpoint, 5:41 pm on 19 October 2021

To Australia, where an urgent search for a missing four-year-old girl feared abducted is being hampered by extreme weather.

Cleo Smith went missing from a campsite in a rural area on the coast of Western Australia four days ago.

She was with her family in a tent in her sleeping bag and was last seen by them at about 1:30am.

It has sparked memories of the Azaria Chamberlain case - the nine-week-old baby who disappeared near Uluru more than 40 years ago on a family camping trip - taken by a dingo.

There's been a massive search - but that was temporarily called off today as heavy rains and winds battered the coast.

ABC reporter James Carmody is near Blowholes Campsite in Macleod. He talks to Lisa Owen.