MANILA - A Philippine coastguard diver died on Friday 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.

Hours earlier, he had retrieved the body of a woman from the sunken ship, said Tuason.

While the cause of death was not confirmed, the coastguard admitted they were taking a risk as the wreck was located in 67 metres (220 feet) of water, more than the 150 feet that is the divers' normal limit.

In an interview carried by the Philippine Star newspaper, coastguard deputy chief Lieutenant Commander Marcos Gines said the divers were using improvised equipment.

"We knew that it would be a risky dive... but we thought of the families of the passengers," he said.

Officials said there were 11 confirmed dead from the sinking of the Catalyn-B and 16 still missing, their bodies believed trapped in the ship.

Just days after the Catalyn-B went down, another ferry, MV Baleno-9, sank with six dead and 44 missing.