Taipei - Eight Taiwanese scuba divers have been rescued nearly 48 hours after going missing off the island's south, the coastguard said on Monday.

In a remarkable feat of endurance, one of the divers managed to swim ashore and told rescuers where they could find the others, a spokesperson said.

"Five were plucked from the sea by helicopters at dawn Monday and at around 10.47am (02H47 GMT) the last two missing divers were rescued," the spokesperson said.

"They all remained conscious but appeared exhausted. They are now hospitalised," he said.

The six men and two women, all experienced divers, went diving at 10.30am on Saturday near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rock) off Kenting national park, but failed to return to their boat an hour later as scheduled.

After a lengthy wait for rescuers, the group's coach Ding Bo-ling set off on a more than 10-hour swim for shore, finally reaching land before midnight Sunday at Taimali, 76 kilometres (47 miles) further north.

The remaining divers saved energy by floating on their backs and held hands to avoid being separated, local ERA TV reported.

Five helicopters and nine patrol boats had been dispatched for the round-the-clock rescue operations, while the divers' relatives also hired fishing boats to join the search.

In a similar accident in the area nine years ago, six divers were washed away by strong ocean currents, and four of them were rescued after 30 hours.

By COLLEEN LONG Associated Press Writer
© 2008 The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The divers live in a windowless, pressurized chamber for weeks at a time. They descend 700 feet — greater than the height of the Space Needle — to toil for 12-hour shifts in dark, murky water.

Then there's the helium they have to breathe to survive at such depths. Their voices are so high support crews need to use a special recording device to translate.

What's the point of this bizarre subterranean life? Coming up with a way to save drinking water for New York City, which is losing the equivalent of a small lake every day in an enormous, aging, leaky tunnel.

About half the city's water supply passes through the tunnel from upstate reservoirs. Of the hundreds of millions of gallons that flow there every day, some 10 million to 36 million escape from cracks in a 45-mile stretch. Not only is it a waste, the leaks create sinkholes and other problems at the surface.

The city Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the water supply, has been aware of the leaks for decades, but repair work is complicated and takes careful and extensive planning, officials said.

The city began sending divers down to the tunnel in mid-February to gather data that will be used to develop a plan for repairs. The dive work is the first part of an early stage that will determine the best way to fix the tunnel. The project costs about $240 million and will take five years.

"There's not a ticking clock on this, but it's important to fix because this is 50 percent of the water supply," said Emily Lloyd, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.

The city provided The Associated Press access to the project this week, offering a glimpse of the work performed by the divers.

The endeavor requires six men to live in the specialized chamber — a tube the size of a mobile home — for three weeks to get acclimated to the change in pressure below ground. They breathe a mixture of oxygen and helium, because the nitrogen in regular air is too heavy at 600 feet and their lungs could not handle the pressure.

By Andrew Ba Tran and David Fleshler |Sun-Sentinel.com

An Austrian man bitten by a shark while diving over the weekend near the Bahamas has died, authorities said Monday.

The man "passed away from his injuries sustained by a shark bite," said Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson.  The victim was identified as Markus Groh, 49, a lawyer from Vienna, according to Ken Smeriglio, an assistant in the Austrian Consulate in Miami.

Groh was diving about 50 miles east of Fort Lauderdale on Sunday at about 10 a.m. when a shark bit him, according to officials.  Groh had dove off the 70-foot Shear Water, which contacted the Coast Guard after the incident.

The blue commercial diving vessel is registered to Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures from Riviera Beach.  The company offers shark trips to the Bahamas for enthusiasts and photographers hoping to interact with hammerhead and tiger sharks, according to its Web site.  Operators for the company stir in fish and fish parts to "chum" the water and attract the sharks, reads the itinerary. "Please be aware that these are not 'cage' dives; they are open water experiences," states the Web site.

The Coast Guard dispatched a rescue helicopter, and its crew hoisted the man off the boat and flew him to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
In a brief telephone interview, Abernethy said he felt terrible about what happened.

"Right now my heart and soul is with his family," he said.  Abernethy said he couldn't talk further because he was busy with Coast Guard investigators.