A three-year-old girl has been found dead in a dam hours after she wandered away from her family's home on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
About 200 people, including volunteers armed with flashlights, scored the family's property at Cootharaba, near Noosa, after the little girl vanished on Monday afternoon.
They joined the police and SES workers in a frantic search before being sent home around 9pm.
Police remained at the property and divers found her body in the dam, just 150 metres from her home, around midnight.
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The little girl, Elenore, had been in her room playing before she went missing, her aunt Penny Lindsay told The Courier-Mail.
"Her mother went down to get the house phone and then she was gone," she said.
"We searched for an hour and half before we called police. That was between 1.30 to 2pm."
At one point the public response from volunteers wanting to help was so overwhelming that police had to use Facebook to reassure people there were enough resources involved in the search.
"Police wish to offer their sincerest thanks to all the wonderful community members offering to come out and assist with the search."
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
