Maastricht police have opened a grave at a cemetery in the city in their hunt for the remains of an 18-year-old health sciences student who disappeared in 1993.

Tanja Groen vanished on August 31 on her way home from a party at the Circumflex student society in the southern Dutch town. She left the party around midnight to cycle home to her lodgings in Gronsveld but was never seen again.

Police said in a statement that they have ‘very serious’ information which may lead to finding her body.

The grave which is being opened had been newly dug at the time of her disappearance and ‘there was a burial in it on September 1,’ the public prosecution department said.

Footage on the Telegraaf website shows a large white tent has been placed over one of the graves as police and forensic experts arrive. The contents of the grave will be searched ‘layer by layer’ to preserve any evidence, police said.

Cold case investigators were tipped of about the possible location for her body last autumn and her family were told that the grave would be opened this week.

‘We will be so relieved if there is an end to this uncertainty and we can finally bring our daughter home,’ her mother Corrie said in a statement.