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A Nigerian cook has survived after spending almost three days trapped in an air bubble under a sunken ship.

Harrison Okene, 29, was in the bathroom of the tug, called Jascon 4, during the night when it began to capsize in heavy seas, 20 miles off the Nigerian coast. But unlike his 11 colleagues, all of whom were locked in their rooms for safety against piracy and are thought to have died, Mr Okene was able to find an air pocket and await rescue.

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“I prayed about 100 times,” he said. “When I was tired, I started calling on the name of God. I was just calling on His name for divine intervention.”

The drama began at 5am on May 26, when the tug, which was towing a Chevron tanker in the Escravos area in the Gulf of Guinea, found itself in trouble.

Mr Okene told the Nigerian newspaper The Nation: “I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I was thrown from one end of the small cubicle to another.”

As he waited, 98 feet under the sea, water began rising in the cabin. Mr Okene took two mattresses from the beds and sat on top of them, hoping to stay afloat.