Diver Dies While Retrieving Bodies From Sunken Ship In Manila Bay

A Philippine coastguard diver died yesterday retrieving bodies from a ship that sank in deep water in Manila Bay last month, the coastguard service said. The death, the cause of which was not immediately clear, was a grim footnote in a catalogue of shipping disasters to have hit the Philippines in recent years.Petty Officer Armand Bonifacio lost consciousness while diving to the wreck of the Catalyn B, a small wooden ferry that sank on December 24 after hitting a steel-hulled fishing boat, local coastguard chief Commodore Luis Tuason said. Although he regained consciousness after being pulled from the water and placed in a decompression chamber, Bonifacio died a few minutes later as he was being rushed to hospital.