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Last updated: June 17, 2011

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Weather: Adelaide 9°C - 16°C . Shower or two.

Cave diver Agnes Milowka dies in South-East

Ken McGregor Doug Robertson

From: AAP

February 28, 2011 2:51PM

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It could be days before the body of Agnes Milowka, pictured in photos from her website, is recovered from an underwater cave near Mt Gambier. Source: Supplied

Cave diver Agnes Milowka explores underwater terrain in the Bahamas. Pic: Wesley C. Skiles Source: AdelaideNow

Agnes Milowka at the site of a cave dive. Pic: Agnes Milowka Source: AdelaideNow

Divers and emergency services workers gather at Tank Cave. Picture: Lechelle Earl Source: The Advertiser

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Internationally-renowned cave diver Agnes Milowka made this video before she drowned yesterday near Mt Gambier.

A MELBOURNE cave diver who died yesterday was a passionate expert who "couldn't wait to get underground".

Polish born Agnes Milowka, 29, was a "world renowned" diver who had explored caves from Tasmania to the Bahamas.

In Sanctum, which is now showing at cinemas across Australia, Ms Milowka was a stunt diver for the two female characters in the movie.

In a horrific twist of irony, the movie centres around a group of cave divers who are pushed to the limit when an expedition goes tragically wrong.

Ms Milowka graduated from Flinders University with a diploma in Maritime Archaeology in 2007, but has since spent time diving in Florida and was based in Melbourne.

During her short but distinguished career she worked for both National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

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Ms Milowka's body was found in Tank Cave, a seven-kilometre cave near Mt Gambier in South Australia's southeast.

She was one of a group of Victorian divers visiting for the weekend.

SA Police Water Operation Divers are assisting the retrieval operation but the police divers did not have sufficient cave diving experience to recover the body, Superintendent Trevor Twilley said.

"It's an extremely dangerous job and that's why we have to tread with caution and make sure we don't put the cave divers (rescuers) at risk," he said.

"It's one thing to be able to get to (Ms Milowka) but the divers have to be able to get back safely with the body.

"The (divers) are all volunteers and they're very upset because they're a close-knit community. At the moment we're working on getting counselling for them."

Supt Twilley said it was too early to comment on what went wrong on the dive in a cave Ms Milowka had experienced many times previously.

"At this stage it's too early to tell and we probably won't know until we recover the diver and also the equipment then that will be analysed," he said.

"This dive (to video the route to the body) will take about three hours (but) the whole operation could take three days."

On her website, Ms Milowka says she was well aware of the risks she faces everytime she submerged into the dark subterranean world of cave diving.

"It would be difficult to claim that caves are completely safe" she says.

"Going into caves in general carries a certain amount of risk, and then if you add water and submerge the cave then obviously the risks increase."

Tank Cave has been described by dive experts as "the best cave in the southern hemisphere".

It is on private property on the Princes Highway, halfway between Millicent and Mt Gambier, near Tantanoola, and is renowned for being a "complicated underground cavern", according to local diving information.

Ms Milowka's body was about 500m from the cave entrance.

It is the second cave diving death in the South-East in the past year. Melbourne doctor Robert McAlister, 51, died while diving in a sinkhole near Mt Schank on March 13, 2010.

His co-diver was gradually surfacing to avoid the bends when he saw Dr McAlister, an experienced diver, at a great depth below him, authorities said.

The co-diver did not have enough air to return to Dr McAlister. He came to the surface and raised the alarm, but when water operations police found Dr McAlister he was dead and was tangled in the cave's guide ropes.

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