A MAJOR search is under way after a County Durham man went missing near a treacherous river gorge in the mountains of Slovenia.

The 23-year-old was travelling in the northwest of the country with friends when he disappeared last Thursday.

The Northern Echo understands the missing man to be tree surgeon Jack Daykin, who is from Darlington and has connections to the Bishop Auckland area.

Some of Mr Daykin’s close family, including his parents, have travelled out to Slovenia.

The Northern Echo: Jack Daykin at the North-East Wake Park at Bishopton, in 2015Jack Daykin at the North-East Wake Park at Bishopton, in 2015

A local police source told The Northern Echo family members had visited the search area and met with senior officers and protection and rescue forces to discuss the ongoing search operation.

A spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed officials had been made aware of the situation, adding: “We are supporting the family of a British man reported missing in Slovenia.”

The operation between the mountain town of Bovec, in the Julian Alps, and Nova Gorica, on the Italian border, was launched immediately after the alarm was raised, just after 7pm on Thursday.

According to the Nova Gorica police, Mr Daykin dropped his mobile phone into the ravine while visiting Kluze fort, an ancient military check point positioned high above the Koritnica River.

After realising that he would not be able to reach the bottom of the gorge from the fort, he and a friend headed for the village of Log pod Mangartom.

While his friend waited in their van, Mr Daykin went to look for his phone.

Police described the terrain as steep and dangerous and said the river water level was high due to heavy rain in recent weeks.

About 25 search and rescue specialists have been involved every day since the start of the search and his friends are also said to have joined in.

Members of the mountain police unit, police officers from nearby stations, members of the Special Police Unit, expert divers from Tomlin – a town 30km away – and firefighters have all been deployed to the scene and photographs issued by the authorities show personnel being lowered into the ravine with climbing equipment.

A spokesman for the Nova Gorica police said yesterday: “The search area in Bovec has been seen by the closest relatives of the missing British citizen.”

He added that officers from Bovec Police Station had carried out the searches for the missing man, including yesterday (Monday) in the Kluze Fortress area.

“At the moment the 23-year-old Brit has not yet been found,” he said.

“We will retry the search action tomorrow.”

Reports from Slovenia suggest that, just a day earlier, another British tourist was involved in a kayaking accident on the Soca River, of which the Koritnica is a tributary.

She was said to have been lucky to have survived after she and a group of kayakers went into the swollen river without a guide and her boat was turned upside down.