Search intensifies for missing U.S. student in Dominican Republic

Civil defence boats search for Sudiksha Konanki, a university student from the US who disappeared on a beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on Monday. (Francesco Spotorno/AP via CNN Newsource)

Authorities have ramped up their efforts by air, sea and land to track down the 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student who went missing six days ago while vacationing in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana.

Sudiksha Konanki, 20, vanished at the beach of the Riu República Hotel in the early hours of March 6, sparking a frantic pursuit involving authorities from the Dominican Republic, the United States and India, where Konanki’s family is originally from.

Nearly one week after she was last seen, there are few concrete clues about what might have happened to her.

The Dominican Republic National Police formed a “high-level commission” to work on the investigation, alongside the general prosecutor’s office, the FBI and the international liaison of the US Embassy, the national police said this week.

Authorities are investigating Konanki’s disappearance as an “accident” and conducting a “special search operation in the ocean,” Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader said in a news conference this week.

“We are concerned,” he said. “All government agencies are searching.”

Abinader said the Dominican Republic receives more than 11 million visitors per year and prides itself on being a safe place for tourists. “We are one of the safest countries, not just in Latin America, but in the world in every aspect,” he said.

Konanki’s disappearance – and authorities’ search for her in the water and on land – comes nearly two months after four tourists died after being swept away by strong currents off the coast near Punta Cana, according to the Dominican Republic’s civil defence agency.

The four tourists’ bodies were recovered in January after they were swept away off the Arena Gorda beach in Bávaro, an area of resorts in Punta Cana, the civil defence agency said in a social media post. The four had drowned on January 18, The Associated Press reported. Two other people also were swept away with the four, but survived, the civil defence agency said.

At the time of the January drownings, a red flag was flying at the beach to warn of dangerous ocean conditions, such as strong currents and rough seas, the AP reported.

The sheriff’s office in Virginia’s Loudoun County, where Konanki’s family lives, told CNN it was advised the water was rough in Punta Cana on the night Konanki went missing last week, but could not confirm whether any warnings were in place.

CNN has sought comment from Dominican Republic authorities about the conditions on March 6.

The hours before her disappearance

Konanki travelled to the Dominican Republic with five other female students from the University of Pittsburgh on March 3, according to the sheriff’s office in Virginia’s Loudoun County.

On March 6 around 4:15 a.m., surveillance cameras captured a group of people – Konanki, five other women and two men - entering the beach, the Dominican Republic National Police said in a release. Before heading to the beach, the group had been drinking in the hotel’s lobby around an hour earlier, a source with the national police told CNN.

Cameras later captured five women and one man leaving the beach around 4:55 a.m. – but not Konanki, two sources close to the investigation told CNN.

Konanki appears to have stayed behind with a man in his 20s, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation. Surveillance video showed the man leaving the beach area just before 9 a.m. local time Thursday without Konanki, the two sources close to the investigation said.

Authorities have been interviewing the man, though he is not considered to be a suspect at this time, the law enforcement source said. He was being kept in a hotel room under police watch as the probe continues, but he is not officially detained, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

He told authorities they both went into the ocean but he felt sick, got out of the water and fell asleep on a lounge chair, according to the source.

Another law enforcement source briefed on the investigation said the man was interviewed by police several times and provided different details but there were no significant inconsistencies in his recounting of the events that night. The source said translation issues may have been a reason for the differences.

When Konanki didn’t come back to her room, her companions searched for her, according to the law enforcement source. The group reported her missing to hotel staff around 4 p.m. Thursday, the RIU hotel chain said in a release.

Konanki’s sarong-style cover-up was found on a lounge chair on the beach, but there were no signs of violence, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Konanki’s disappearance came a day after a power outage started at the hotel, the facility’s operator RIU Hotels & Resorts said Wednesday. Power was restored to 70% of the facility by early March 5 – two hours after the outage began – and was fully restored at 2:13 a.m. on March 6, the company said.

‘Everybody’s so worried’

In the days since, a massive search effort involving dogs, drones and helicopters does not appear to have produced any solid leads about Konanki’s whereabouts.

Konanki’s father, Subbarayudu Konanki, said his daughter is a “very nice girl” and “wanted to pursue a career in medicine.”

She was visiting Punta Cana for spring break ahead of premed studies, her father said.

Originally from India, the Konanki family has been in the US since 2006 and are permanent residents living in Virginia.

Those in her hometown are praying for her safe return.

“It’s already four days and everybody’s so worried,” family friend Shekar Pendem, who has known Konanki since she was 3, said in an interview with CNN affiliate WUSA Monday.

On Monday, Dominican police said they were re-interviewing people who had been with Konanki and employees of the hotel where they were staying.

As of early Tuesday, more than 300 officers, specialists, tactical units and aquatic search teams were searching the surrounding area of the hotel for any information about the woman’s whereabouts, according to a post on social media by Dominican Republic National Police.

The government has made available “all the necessary resources” to find Konanki, police said, including teams of forensic technicians who are analyzing images from video surveillance cameras in the area.

Subbarayudu Konanki and his wife Sreedevi flew to Punta Cana with two family friends, according to The Associated Press. He has asked authorities to widen the investigation.

The formal request notes that the student’s belongings, including her phone and wallet, were left with her friends, “which is unusual because she always carried her phone with her,” he wrote in the report, according to radio station WTOP, as reported by the AP. It’s unclear where this information came from.

Konanki’s father told CNN earlier he wants local authorities “to also investigate other possibilities including whether this is a case of kidnapping or human trafficking.”

Civil Defence spokesperson Jensen Sánchez told the AP that the search “is underway at sea because it’s presumed she drowned.”

He noted it can take more than a week for a body to surface in warm waters, the AP reported.

Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman told NewsNation on Monday it was too early to speculate that Konanki had drowned.

“It’s way too premature to make an assumption like that,” Chapman said.

Detectives with the sheriff’s office have travelled to the Dominican Republic and have met with Konanki’s family, Chapman told NBC on Tuesday.

“We decided to send our own detectives down there with them (FBI) so that we’re not missing anything. We want to make sure … we’re getting the information firsthand,” Chapman said in the interview with NBC. “Some of the information that we’ve gotten so far – it has been a little disjointed, inconsistent, and we want to get it firsthand.”

“We don’t think she would be able to survive for more than three days in the water,” Subbarayudu told CNN Sunday. “I think something else might’ve happened to her.”

Article written by Lex Harvey, CNN