The tragic deaths of five Italian divers and a Maldivian navy diver in an underwater cave in the Maldives have prompted renewed warnings from experts about the extreme risks of cave diving without proper training, planning and equipment.
The Divers Alert Network (DAN) confirmed on Thursday that all bodies had been recovered from the Dhekunu Kandu dive site in Vaavu atoll. The victims were identified as Monica Montefalcone, an ecology professor; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti. Mohamed Mahudhee of the Maldivian national defence force died from decompression sickness during a recovery mission.
British cave diver Jonathan Volanthen, who helped rescue 12 schoolboys from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018, said cave diving carries risks fundamentally different from open-water diving. “If something goes wrong, you can’t simply head to the surface because there’s usually something that’s preventing that,” he said, adding that silt stirred up by divers can reduce visibility to zero, making exits much more difficult.
American cave diving expert Edd Sorenson emphasised the importance of redundancy in equipment, including multiple tanks, regulators, lights and computers. He also warned that caves are “devoid of light” and that a loss of light can destroy spatial awareness, making a continuous guide line to the surface essential.
Investigations by Maldivian and Italian authorities are ongoing, but experts are calling for stricter adherence to established cave-diving safety protocols.
