Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have taken samples of potential evidence from abandoned houses near where she went missing 18 years ago.

A squad of half a dozen German and Portuguese police officers and firefighters used chainsaws, hedge trimmers and pickaxes to clear thick foliage and access several crumbling ruins near Praia Da Luz in the Algarve on Tuesday morning.

The officers removed mounds of earth and deposited them in plastic containers, which will be taken away for further examination.

Close by, two blue supply tents had been set up to store equipment, including a ground-penetrating radar device.

At one derelict sand-coloured house, approximately 300 metres from the coastline, a group of four firemen and one police officer pumped a disused well

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