A team of expert Finnish divers may have resolved the mystery surrounding the deaths of five Italian divers who perished while exploring deep-sea caves in the Maldives. The Italian divers set off to explore caves in the Vaavu Atoll last Thursday but never resurfaced.
The body of diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti was found near the cave mouth on the day of the disappearance, while the remaining four bodies were located on Monday at a depth of approximately 165 feet. Mystery has surrounded the tragedy, described as the worst diving incident in the island nation, as investigators seek to determine how the experienced group met their fate.
Now, a team of expert divers from Finland, who recovered the bodies this week, have suggested the group may have taken the wrong tunnel while exiting an underwater cave. The professional divers, working for Dan Europe—a medical and research organization dedicated to scuba diver health and safety—found the Italians in a corridor with a dead end inside the cave complex, Italy's La Repubblica daily reported. 'There was no way out from there,' the company's CEO, Laura Marroni, was quoted as saying.
Victims Identified
The Italian divers included Monica Montefalcone, a marine biology professor with extensive experience; her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal; two young researchers, Federico Gualtieri and Muriel Oddenino; and their Maldives-based guide, Benedetti.
Cave Layout and Fatal Mistake
The Finnish divers found the cave near Alimatha begins with a large, brightly lit cavern with a sandy bottom, Marroni told the newspaper. At the end of this room is a corridor with little light, but visibility was excellent using artificial lighting. The corridor is almost 30 meters long and three meters wide, leading to a second chamber—a large, round space with no natural light. Between the corridor and the second chamber is a sandbank.
It is easy to cross the sandbank into the second chamber, but when turning to leave, the bank appears like a wall, hiding the corridor. On the left of the sandbank is another corridor, only a few dozen meters long. 'The divers' bodies were all found inside, as if they had mistaken it for the right one,' the paper said. If they had taken that corridor by mistake, 'then it would have been very difficult to return, especially with the limited air supply,' Marroni said.
Limited Air Supply
The divers used standard tanks, meaning at that depth they had very little time to visit the second cave—approximately 10 minutes or even less. 'Realising that the path is the wrong one and having little air, perhaps after going back and forth, is terrifying. Then you breathe quickly, and the air supply decreases,' Marroni said.
Investigation Underway
Authorities in the Maldives are investigating how the Italians were allowed to descend to a depth of 60 meters when the Indian Ocean country permits a maximum depth of 30 meters for tourists.
