The missing 13-year-old boy who disappeared after getting into difficulty in a lake has been named by Staffordshire Police as Ryan Evans.

Emergency services were called to Westport Lake, Stoke-on-Trent, after three children were seen struggling on Monday afternoon.

Two of the children made it safely out of the lake but on Tuesday the rescue operation to try to find Ryan had entered its second day.

Frogmen from Nottinghamshire Police and shore-line search teams in dry-suits remain at the scene as the search operation was continuing, with authorities saying the underwater search was taking place in “extremely difficult conditions” at one end of the lake, where a witness last spotted Ryan.

Chief Inspector John Owen, of Staffordshire Police, said Ryan’s family “must be distraught and devastated”.

He said: “We know they are going through something no parent should ever go through.

“We need to make sure they find out any information before anyone else and we’re giving them all the support they need. That’s our primary focus.”

Owen added: “The divers are going to be working in murky conditions. Speaking to local fisherman here, it’s extremely reedy and weedy at the bottom, they’re working in extremely difficult conditions.

“It is an extremely large lake and I can’t give timescales at all.

“We need to be thorough, we need to be systematic and we need to do things properly. In essence, sometimes it’s a pace to make sure we don’t miss things.”

The lake is a legacy of coal mining associated with the area’s historic potteries and industrial trade, though the fire brigade said it was the “clarity and size of the lake that’s proving the difficulty”.

Group manager Brian Moss, of Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, urged people not to give into the “temptation” to go into rivers and open water during the hot days.

The body of water sits above the old Brownhills Colliery and was formed in 1884, when the workings hit the water table, flooding the tunnels and ground above.