Lost Divers Survive 36-hour Ordeal

Three British divers who were among a group swept away during a dive off Indonesia have been found safe after they managed to swim to a remote beach on a neighbouring island. During their 36-hour ordeal they were carried almost 25 miles by strong currents in seas where sharks and poisonous snakes are common - and then were confronted with carnivorous komodo dragons when they reached land.

Divemaster Kathleen Mitchinson, Charlotte Allin, 24, her boyfriend, 30-year-old James Manning, and two others - Frenchman Laurent Pinel, 31 and Swede Elena Neradairen - were so concerned that their rescue might take days that they began scavenging for shellfish to survive and were forced to use rocks to drive off a komodo dragon - one of the huge, aggressive lizards common in the area - which is capable of killing a human.

After being caught in a rip current - a strong current common in the area's waters - the group had tried to swim out of it but became exhausted and tied themselves together with their dive vests, before finally managing to swim on to Rinca Island on Thursday night in a last effort to avoid being swept out into the open ocean.

The divers were on a trip organised by Reefseekers, owned by Mitchinson and her husband, Ernest Lewandowski. Local divers reported that the current in the area of Tawa Besar Island was 'very, very strong', leading to questions about the party's choice of dive location.

Pinel said yesterday that the group ate shellfish while they were waiting to be spotted in the Komodo National Park. 'We ate some kind of mussels scraped from the rocks,' he said after reaching a medical clinic on Flores island, a common base for dive charters, including Reefseekers.

'On the beach a komodo dragon came amongst us,' he said, describing how the group had to pelt the dangerous reptile with rocks to scare it away.'

He said the divers had spent nine hours adrift after being swept away from their dive boat in a strong current late Thursday afternoon. 'If we'd continued, it would have been the ocean,' he said. 'We were exhausted. Everyone had cramps.'

Local people joined in the search of the national park, between the islands of Flores and Sumbawa, east of Bali. There were fears that although the missing divers had entered seas of about 26C they could have drifted into much colder waters, where they would have been at serious risk of developing hypothermia.

The group was found shortly before midday yesterday by national park rangers who took them to Labuanbajo, where they had set off for what was supposed to be a routine day of diving. Pinel said they were in relatively good condition, considering their ordeal.

Lewandowski broke the news of the rescue: 'They have been found, they are alive and are now on their way to get medical assistance. That is all I can say at this stage,' he said yesterday. He had been with another diving party near where the group went missing off the remote national park and raised the alarm after finding no sign of his wife's group when he surfaced.

The area where they had been diving is a world heritage site famous for its coral caves. It is regarded suitable only for very experienced divers because of currents which change direction rapidly with the tide.

Allin's father, Dave, said yesterday: 'We know that they have been found. It is fantastic news. It has been a very long night. I haven't spoken to Charlotte yet and we don't know what their medical condition is. We are still waiting for news of how they are.

'I gather that they have managed to walk under their own steam which is a good sign,' he added.

Speaking from the family home in the village of Northam, near Bideford, Devon, he said: 'We have all the family over here. There are about 12 of us including the grandparents and we are all celebrating. We have been sitting around waiting for news all night. It is pretty emotional, as you can imagine.' Allin's mother, Sue, said: 'I didn't believe that she was all right until I heard her voice.'

Allin and her boyfriend were also diving instructors who had been teaching scuba diving in Phi Phi, Thailand, for about two years. Her father said they would be coming home soon.

The accident, one of a spate of recent tourist diving deaths around the world, follows an incident last month when a Norfolk man, Dick Neely, 38, and his American girlfriend, Alison Dalton, 40, spent 19 hours adrift off the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast.