Divers have plucked two more bodies from a sunken passenger ferry and scrambled to plug an oil leak in the wreckage after a collision with a cargo ship.

Divers are combing through a sunken ferry to retrieve the bodies of more than 200 people who are missing after a collision with a cargo vessel near the central Philippine port of Cebu.

A ferry with nearly 700 people aboard has sunk near the central Philippine port of Cebu after colliding with a cargo vessel, killing at least 17 people. Hundreds of others were rescued.