TOKYO — The bodies of several missing American sailors were found in the flooded berthing compartments of the damaged naval destroyer Fitzgerald on Sunday, a day after it was rammed by a container ship four times its size off the Japanese coast, the Navy said in a statement and a Twitter post.

The Navy’s statement did not say how many of the seven missing sailors were found, or if any of them were found alive. But Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, commander of the United States 7th Fleet, said at a news conference later Sunday that the search and rescue mission had ended. He said no further information about the missing sailors would be released until the process of notifying families had been completed.

Search crews had to work their way through the extensive damage to the Fitzgerald’s starboard side before they found the sailors, the Navy said. They were taken to a naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.

The collision with the Philippines-registered cargo ship, the ACX Crystal, occurred about 60 miles off the coast at 2:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, at a time when most of the crew of the Fitzgerald would have been asleep. After the accident, the ship was escorted back to its base, in Yokosuka, Japan, where the search took place.