The chances of Dutch and Australian police reaching the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are not good, and the effort could take days, a senior Australian official said today.

An unarmed team of Dutch and Australian officers was forced to drop their plans to visit the site yesterday as heavy bombardments rocked towns close to the area where the plane was shot down, killing all 298 on board.

And tensions were such that the Netherlands scrapped a plan to send an international armed mission in to secure the site, with the Dutch Prime Minister saying it was “not realistic’’.

Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Andrew Colvin said it was not known when recovery teams will get to the impact zone.

“It doesn’t look good to be quite honest with you,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Obviously this fighting has taken us by surprise. If it is a genuine offensive to take back ground, we may be some days before we can feel safe and secure to go back in there.”

He added that Australian police would have no role in securing the site and would only be involved in a detailed examination of the crash area, which Colvin estimated would take five to seven days initially.

Dutch authorities said the team would remain in Donetsk, a rebel stronghold about 60 kilometres from the crash site, for the time-being.

So far, investigators have visited the site only sporadically because of security concerns, even though a truce had been called in the immediate area around the site by both the Kiev forces and pro-Russian separatists.

The Netherlands and Australia together lost some 221 citizens in the crash.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had arrived in Kiev on Sunday for talks with the Ukrainian Government to try to ensure the safety of the Dutch and Australian team.

“We are aware this plane was shot down over a war zone and that news of the fighting has intensified is perhaps inevitable, but we are planning for those risks,” she said.

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