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Sibuan Island: US navy divers will join the grim search for bodies in a sunken ferry in the Philippines on Wednesday with over 700 people still missing.
Hundreds of passengers were feared trapped inside the Princess of the Stars when it ran aground and capsized in waves as big as houses off the central island of Sibuyan during a typhoon on Saturday.
Philippine divers retrieved three bloated corpses, including one believed to be a crew member still clutching his radio, on Tuesday.
Coast guard officials said operations were now underway to retrieve bodies from inside a dining hall, where around 15 people, still wearing life vests, were floating head up.
"They are optimistic they will be able to penetrate the others spaces today," Lieutenant Commander Armand Balilo, coast guard spokesman, said.
Officials do not expect to find any survivors. Plans to bore a hole into the side of the seven-storey vessel have been abandoned for fear of disturbing around 100,000 litres of bunker fuel still on board.
Around 10 divers from US military ship, the USNS Stockham, will join the operation after receiving orientation.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United States would send an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, to aid in the relief effort following Typhoon Fengshen, which devastated islands in the centre of the archipelago.
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