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greenturtle
03-02-2011, 01:37 PM
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/divers-to-retrieve-womans-body-from-cave-20110301-1bd0t.html

Cave divers are widening underwater channels so they can begin the slow process of retrieving the body of a woman who died in South Australia's Tank Cave.

Agnes Milowka, 29, was found dead after becoming separated from her diving buddy on Sunday in the 8km-long channel system near Mt Gambier.

Tank Cave is one of Australia's longest underwater caves.

Advertisement: Story continues below Police and cave divers spent Tuesday trying to clear and widen the channels to make it easier to retrieve her body, which is 600 metres from the sink hole entrance.

Superintendent Trevor Twilley says three teams of two divers each have been in the cave and a fourth dive may still be needed on Tuesday.

"If we don't, then we will commence the retrieval process tomorrow," he said.

"The difficulties aren't significant ... other than the visibility."

Just moving a piece of rubble stirs up enough sediment to drop visibility to almost zero for several hours, he said.

The body retrieval is unlikely to be completed on Wednesday.

"It is likely to be much longer," the superintendent said.

"It is a fairly extensive and complex operation and given the complexity of the cave system and how narrow some parts of the cave system is ... it could be a couple of days, anywhere up to maybe 10 dives.

"Some of the divers, when they are going through a particular channel, have the walls of the cavity pressed up against the front of their body and the back of their body."

Superintendent Twilley said police won't know what happened until they recover and test Ms Milowka's equipment.

It is understood her parents are at the site.

Ms Milowka believed cave diving was the essence of exploration and knew the risks, but said on her website the rewards were worth it.