The Maldives National Defence Force’s rescue officers have found three members of the crew they began looking for early Friday.

They had received a distress call from ‘Umeedhu’, a vessel used for cargo transfer, at around 5:30 am while it was in Baa Atoll.

The defence force had dispatched search teams by land and sea on Friday after first-responders failed to sight the crew or the vessel.

Officers had even said that there ‘were no signs’ of a vessel having sunk.

The crew consisted of a Maldivian captain and two expatriate workers. The captain had confirmed that the vessel had sunk.