A man was swept into a river and dragged away by the current in front of his wife, his son has said.
Euan Robertson told The Courier his father Struan Robertson was trying to clear a hydro-power device on his estate in Perthshire when he lost his footing and fell into the water amid flooding following heavy rain.
A search operation was launched at about 5pm on Sunday after police received a report of concern for a 77-year-old man seen in the River Tay, near Strathtay.
Police Scotland said specialist resources including a police helicopter and drones were used to search for him on Monday amid “challenging” conditions, with searches continuing on Tuesday and expected to resume on Wednesday.
The incident happened at the Pitcastle estate which Struan Robertson has owned for the past two decades.
READ MORE: Road closures and trains cancelled after floods
His son told The Courier: “He was trying to clear a hydro intake from the Tay. It powers the electricity but it gets clogged up when the water is so high.
“He lost his footing and was swept into the river. The current dragged him away.
“I was in Perth at the time. My mother was with him when it happened.”
Police Scotland said the search was launched after a 77-year-old man was swept into the River Tay, near Strathtay.
READ MORE: Floods could leave Scots farmers 'with a bill for millions'
A spokesman for the force said: “The incident was reported around 5.30pm on Sunday, and a multi-agency response was set up with partners.”
Weather warnings were in place over much of Scotland at the weekend as the country was battered by heavy rainfall, which caused flooding and led to train cancellations and road closures.
There were still 15 flood warnings and nine flood alerts in place on Wednesday morning.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here