ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) – About 700 volunteers joined police, soldiers and FBI agents on Monday, combing scrub- land and beaches on Aruba’s southeastern tip in an unprecedented search for an Alabama teenager who vanished a week ago on a trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.

Aruba’s government let 4,000 civil servants off work early at 2 p.m. to hunt for Natalee Holloway, 18, of Mountain Brook, Ala. The expanded search began a day after police charged two men in her disappearance.

The honors student vanished May 30 while on a five-day trip with more than 100 classmates celebrating their high school graduation. Seven chaperones accompanied them.

Kenneth Angela and three co-workers from Aruba’s lottery company were among the hundreds who boarded 10 buses in the community of Santa Cruz, about six miles from the capital, Oranjestad, to be taken to the search site.

“It’s the first time Aruba has done such a big search,” said Angela, a 31-year-old lottery supervisor. “We want to keep Aruba’s name good. That’s why we’re here, to help find Natalee.”

The initial idea for the search called for an islandwide effort, but later changed focus to the southeastern area of Seroe Colorado and part of San Nicolas, police commander Judy Hassell said. San Nicolas is where authorities arrested the two men who were charged in the case.

Hassell said Aruba’s 74 square miles, slightly larger than Washington, D.C., made a full search of the island impractical. “We’re going to do as much as we can,” he said.

One of several search parties scoured barren terrain spotted with sequoia cactus, prickly pear and sea grass in view of Valero oil refinery. A helicopter hovered overhead. Other groups searched abandoned houses, remote roads and bushes. Lizards skittered across their paths.

Some of the volunteers were tourists, including Bill and Sarah Wise, both 22, of Cleveland. “We couldn’t leave without trying to help a fellow American,” Bill Wise said.

Sarah Wise said the case touched her because she and Holloway are about the same age. “It could be me,” she said.

Hassell said she asked the Justice Ministry for permission to conduct another big search Tuesday but had not yet received permission.

The coast guard said Aruba’s shoreline already had been searched on foot, by boat and helicopter, but the new search was more thorough.

Holloway’s disappearance has shaken the sense of security many of Aruba’s 97,000 people took for granted. Only one murder and six rapes were recorded last year. So far this year, there have been two murders and three rapes on the island, where the average annual income is a comfortable $22,000.

The two suspects, aged 28 and 30, were arrested in a raid before dawn Sunday. Police said the men work as security guards. Neighbors said the pair served as guards at a hotel under renovation near the one where Holloway stayed.

Aruba officials declined to provide specific charges, saying the case will go before a judge by Tuesday to determine whether the men can be legally held. Authorities had not found any of Holloway’s belongings at the suspects’ homes.

Authorities impounded three vehicles and took bags of items from the two homes. An eight-member team of FBI agents supporting the investigation will help perform forensic testing, police said.

Police spokesman Edwin Comemencia said authorities had not ruled out the possibility that other people were involved. The two men in custody were not among three others described Saturday by police as “persons of interest.”

Authorities declined to comment whether there was a relationship between the suspects and other three, earlier described as students – two Surinamese and a native of the Netherlands – who told police they dropped off Holloway at her hotel around 2 a.m. on May 30. Hotel employees, however, say that security cameras did not record her return.

The night she disappeared, Holloway went to a beach concert and then ate and danced at Carlos’ n Charlie’s bar and restaurant. She did not show up for her return flight hours later, and police found her passport in her hotel room with her packed bags.

Police are investigating three main theories: Holloway was kidnapped; she went off on her own – a possibility her relatives discount; or that she had come to harm.

It was not clear if Holloway had been drinking the night of her disappearance, though her relatives say she does not party much, is achievement-oriented and a straight-A student who had earned a full scholarship to study a premedical course at the University of Alabama. Her hotel, the Holiday Inn, is right on the water.

The Aruba government and local tourism organizations have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Holloway’s rescue. Her family and benefactors in Alabama have offered $30,000 in addition.

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