The bodies of six Indian divers were recovered from their diving chamber today, three days after their support vessel went down in the Persian Gulf, trapping them with limited oxygen supply.
The Iranian rescue team looking for the missing crew members had hoped to find the divers alive but their efforts ended in tragedy as they found the six Indians dead.
However, search is still on for the remaining seven crew members of the ship that sank in stormy seas on Thursday with 73 people onboard.
The other 60 had been rescued earlier.
The Director-General of the Port and Maritime Organisation of Bushehr province, Mohammad Rastad said the bodies of six Indian divers have been transferred to tug-boat.
"Rescue team could find the bodies of six Indian divers on Sunday with 5 confined in oxygen room of the ship (that) sank Thursday," he was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency. The search went on for the entire night following which the rescuers found the bodies this morning.
"Unluckily all the six people are dead. Transferring their bodies to tug-boat from the 72 metre depth of the sea is underway so that the bodies would be handed to the related authorities," he said.
Among the 13 crew members onboard the ship, eight were foreigners. The divers were installing an underwater oil pipeline and were inside a pressurised diving chamber when their Koosha-1 ship sank in the Persian Gulf in stormy seas.
The ship left the offshore oil rigs in the Persian Gulf and was heading towards Iran's southern Assaloyeh Port when it suddenly sank 15 miles away from Assaloyeh. Some reports attributed a cargo overload for the sinking of the ship.
As the ship's diving chamber - used to lay and maintain oil pipes in the Gulf - contained its own limited oxygen supply, Iranian officials had initially held out hopes that the six inside might have survived.