Three persons drowned and one went missing while taking bath in the Arabian Sea after offering prayers at a temple in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district, officials said on Sunday.

The incident took place on Saturday evening when a large number of devotees gathered in Bhavnagar's Koliyak village to offer prayers at the Nishkalank Mahadev temple located on an islet nearby, a rescue team official said.

"Initially, a man, identified as Takhuba Sarvaiya hailing from Anand district, was washed away while taking bath in the waters near the temple," a Bhavnagar fire department official said.

The rescue team later traced the man and rushed him to a nearby community health centre where he was declared brought dead, he said.

After some time, three boys, in the age group of 16 to 17, also got swept away and started drowning while taking a bath in the waters, the official said.

A team including divers undertook a rescue operation and later fished out the bodies of two of them, identified as Dhruvrajsinh Jadeja (16) and Harsh Chimaria (16).

The other person - Hardik Parmar (17) - was still missing and efforts were on to trace him, the official said.