THE FAMILY of Dublin man Paul Nolan Miralles yesterday experienced the trauma of retrieving body parts from the canal in Amsterdam which were believed to be those of the 36-year-old who went missing a week ago.
It is now believed that after he drowned from falling into the canal late at night his body came in contact with the propeller of a passing vessel, possibly a tourist boat.
Mr Nolan Miralles, a photographer and waiter at Amsterdam’s Hard Rock Café, is believed to have fallen into the Singel canal after picking up his bicycle outside his workplace after a late night out with workmates at a nearby bar on April 13th.
The Nolan Miralles family from Clonsilla, who had been in Amsterdam searching for him for the past week, were loaned a boat and sonar equipment by friends of the missing man.
Mr Nolan Miralles’s brother Jaime, a brother in law and a cousin took an arm and a number of other body parts from the water during a day-long search.
The family had conducted the search to locate Mr Nolan Miralles’s remains themselves and then contacted Dutch police and requested that they come and take the remains away.
A police spokesman had earlier said that after divers and dredging operations on Wednesday failed to produce results, they were officially halting their search.
“We have been looking for him for the past four days and now we have stopped searching, until there is new information,” the spokesman had said.
Some human parts were found by police and Mr Nolan Miralles’s jacket and bag had been found shredded in the propeller of a canal boat. Shortly before the canal boat filled with visitors, occupants of a small boat reported seeing a body in the water.
Mr Nolan Miralles’s sister Anne Ravanona said yesterday: “Our mother Rosario is totally heartbroken . . . we will stay here as long as it takes and then bring him home to Ireland for burial.”