SEMAWANG, Indonesia — Five Japanese scuba divers were found alive Monday clinging to a coral reef in rough waters off the Indonesian resort island of Bali three days after they went missing, officials said.



Fishermen spotted the divers, among seven women who went missing Friday, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from where they set off for a diving expedition but could not rescue them because the waves were too high. But one of them was later rescued by a helicopter, which also dropped food to the stranded divers. The four others were being picked up by a rescue boat and would be taken to Semawang beach in southern Bali. “There were five found atop a large coral reef,” Rudi Tjandi, an official from the Bali disaster agency, said. “The waves and current were quite strong, so the fishermen who spotted them couldn’t approach.”



He said they were found at Manta Point off the west coast of Nusa Penida island, just east of Bali.



They had set off on a dive expedition Friday from the Mangrove area of Nusa Lembongan, an adjacent island. The shortest route to where they ended up was around 20 kilometers.



Local police chief Nyoman Suarsika also said that they were found in the Manta Point area.



Officials had no news of the other two missing divers. A search involving about 100 people has been under way since their disappearance, with rescue efforts hampered by heavy rain and strong winds earlier Monday.



Distraught relatives of the divers have been arriving in Bali, with a distressed husband of one of them spotted on Sanur beach. “I’m praying for her safety,” the mother of missing instructor Shoko Takahashi told reporters in Japan on Sunday before leaving for Bali, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun daily. “She is an active person with a dependable personality. She never does foolhardy things.”



Takahashi and her husband had set up the operator known as Yellow Scuba that took the divers out on the trip, said Japanese consular official Kenichi Takeyama. He said two members of her family had joined a small briefing on the search at the consulate in Bali. Takeyama said Yellow Scuba had provided boats and staff for the search. The women were experienced scuba divers who had logged more than 50 dives each.



John Chapman, a Briton who runs the World Diving Lembongan operation on the island where the women went missing, said the heavy rain and choppy sea could have been a factor in their disappearance.



Japan’s Kyodo news agency said the missing women were named by police and rescue authorities as: Ritsuko Miyata, 59, Emi Yamamoto, 33, Nahomi Tomita, 28, Aya Morizono, 27, Atsumi Yoshinobe, 29, Shoko Takahashi, 29, and Saori Furukawa, 27. — AFP