By Jonny Humphries, BBC News
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A British teenager who is missing in Tenerife was on his first holiday with his friends, his mother has said.
Debbie Duncan’s 19-year-old son Jay Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, has not been seen or heard from for over 48 hours.
He had flown to the Canary island with friends to attend the NRG music festival.
Search teams, relatives and friends have been looking for the apprentice bricklayer in the mountainous Rural de Teno national park.
‘Traumatic’
Ms Duncan told the PA News Agency: “It’s just traumatic and it doesn’t feel real. It’s just awful, it’s horrendous.
“He’s just a great person who everyone wanted to be with. He’s good looking, he’s a popular boy.”
She added that the police leading the search had been “very good”.
Social media posts from Sunday night showed Jay, dressed in a grey t-shirt with green patches on the shoulders, enjoying himself.
Jay’s friend Lucy Mae – who had gone to the island with him to attend the NRG music festival – has said Jay had gone to stay with people he had met on a night out, in the north-west of the island.
She has said she was called by him shortly before 09:00 on Monday to say he was trying to make the 10-hour walk back to their accommodation in the south of the island, but needed water and had only 1% battery life left on his phone.
The call then cut out and Jay has not been seen or heard from since.
His last known location was on a path in the mountainous Rural de Teno national park in the north-west of the island.
Ms Duncan told the BBC: “I’ve not slept at all, it’s like it’s not real.
“It was his first holiday abroad with his friends and I was encouraging him to go, I said, ‘You will have a great time’.”
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Ms Duncan said local police and mountain rescue teams had been “working tirelessly” searching for her son, including using drones and dogs.
British journalist Chris Elkington, editor of the Canarian Weekly, told the BBC the terrain at Mr Slater’s last known location was “harsh”.
He said: “It’s a rural park where you get a lot of hiking trails, it’s very mountainous, quite sparse, quite barren.
“Quite deserty in a lot of ways, with some very deep ravines and valleys.
“It’s certainly somewhere you would not want to be in normal conditions without the correct footwear, particularly without water.”
Speaking about the response to his disappearance, Mr Elkington said: “It’s unheard of, it’s incredible the support, not just from his friends and family but the local ex-pat residents over here and obviously the Spanish residents now as well.”
But Jay’s mother Ms Duncan said she was growing increasingly desperate.
“He’s just an all-round nice, bubbly guy with hundreds of friends who love being in his company,” she said.
“He’s gorgeous, he’s beautiful. He’s my baby.”
Accrington and Rossendale College, where Jay was completing his apprenticeship, said: “We are deeply concerned about the recent news regarding one of our apprentices, Jay Slater, who has gone missing while on holiday in Tenerife.
“The safety and wellbeing of our students are of upmost important to us, and our thoughts at this worrying time are with Jay’s family and friends.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”
