Australian authorities discovered the remains of a 12-year-old girl Thursday after she was reportedly snatched by a crocodile while swimming in a creek.

Police Senior Sgt. Erica Gibson told reporters, “It was an extremely difficult, essentially 36 hours, difficult for the first responders involved in the search.”

The child’s disappearance began a nearly two-day search by land, air and water.

Her remains were discovered near the river where the girl had gone missing, southwest of the Northern Territory capital Darwin, in the Indigenous community of Palumpa. 

Sgt. Gibson confirmed that the girl’s injuries were from a crocodile attack, saying “The recovery has been made. It was particularly gruesome and a sad, devastating outcome.”

Northern Australia is a tropical climate, supporting a boom in saltwater crocodile populations since populations have been conserved under Australian law beginning in the 1970s.