KUPANG, Indonesia (AFP) - Five European divers who had been missing for two days in treacherous waters east of Bali were found drifting but alive by fishermen on Saturday, Indonesian police said.

Police in the Nusa Tenggara island chain where the divers went missing late Thursday said fishermen sent on a search mission by authorities had located them south of the tiny island of Rinca.

"Fishermen found them floating in the water. They are all safe," Manggarai Barat district police chief Butje Hello told AFP.

He said the divers -- three Britons, a Frenchman and a Swede -- were being taken to Labuanbajo, the western port of Flores island.

The husband of one of the missing British divers told AFP he had not yet spoken to his wife but he was relieved she had been found alive after apparently being swept away in strong currents on Thursday afternoon.

"They are all alive and medical services are on standby. Thank God. I just want to hear my wife's voice," dive master Ernest Lewandowski said.

Labuanbajo is about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Rinca island, which is the east of the Nusa Tenggara archipelago.

The divers were exploring reefs in the Komodo National Park when they vanished.

Lewandowski said he and his wife, Kathleen Mitchinson, who together own a dive shop on Flores, were leading two separate groups of divers when his wife's group got into difficulties.

He only noticed they were missing when his group surfaced an hour after entering the water.

Divers say a combination of relatively shallow water between numerous islands in the Komodo park creates dangerous currents which can develop suddenly during tide changes.

The rips mean the divers can be carried tens of kilometres (miles) away in a matter of hours.

The Reefseekers Diving business owned by Lewandowski and Mitchinson, who are both long-time residents of Flores island, is one of only a handful of diving operators in the national park.

A lack of fuel for aircraft meant police had to call on local fishermen to help cover the search area.

The Komodo National Park is famed for rocky and dry islands housing the giant lizard of the same name.

French diver recounts survival on deserted Indonesian island

LABUANBAJO, Indonesia (AFP) - A French tourist said on Saturday he and four other European divers spent two nights on a deserted Indonesian island eating shellfish and watching for komodo dragons as they awaited rescue.

Laurent Pinel, 31, said the group survived off mussels scavenged from the beach and had to fight off a komodo dragon during the 36 hours they were waiting to be spotted on tiny Rinca island in the Komodo National Park.

"We had nothing to eat. We ate some kind of mussels scraped from the rocks," he told AFP after reaching a medical clinic in this sleepy port on Flores island.

"On the beach a komodo dragon came amongst us yesterday afternoon," he said, describing how the group had to pelt the dangerous reptile with rocks to scare it away.

He said the divers -- three Britons, himself and a Swede -- had spent about nine hours adrift at sea after being swept away from their dive boat in a strong current late Thursday afternoon.

Police earlier said the group had been adrift since they disappeared and were found Saturday morning at sea off Rinca island, but Pinel dismissed this information as inaccurate.

He said they had struggled against the rip for several hours but eventually stopped swimming and tied themselves together by their diving vests to preserve energy.

Late Thursday night they saw another island and decided to make one more effort to reach land before being swept out of the relative protection of the Nusa Tenggara island chain and into the open ocean.

"If we'd continued (to drift), it would have been the ocean," he said.

"We were exhausted. Everyone had cramps."

The group was found before midday on Saturday by national park rangers who took them to Labuanbajo, where they had set off Thursday for what was supposed to be a routine day of diving.

Pinel said they were in relatively good condition considering their ordeal.