(Photo: Mohamed Afrah/AFP)
Rescue teams in the Maldives searched for the bodies of four missing Italians on Friday after the country’s worst diving accident yet.
Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Thursday evening that five Italian citizens died during a diving expedition. Maldivian authorities have already found one body.
Mohamed Muizzu, the president of the Maldives, said the search for the remaining four Italians “remains our highest priority”.
“We are saddened by this tragedy, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased, the four missing Italians and all those affected by this,” Muizzu said in a statement on social media.
Mohamed Ameen, minister of tourism in the Maldives, said coast guard officers and security forces were combing remote sea areas near a deep cave where the divers went missing on Thursday afternoon.
A diving attempt by rescue workers on Friday produced no sign of the missing Italians.
Government spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search area had been demarcated and that the search would resume as soon as the weather improved.
According to him, it is suspected that the victims were trapped in a cave at a depth of about 60 metres.
“The weather conditions are not ideal for diving and the sea is very rough. We have deployed our largest coast guard ship to the area, and Italian diplomats are also on the scene,” Shareef told AFP.
(Photo: Mohamed Afrah/AFP)
He said tourists may not dive deeper than 30 meters.
“There will be a separate investigation into how these divers exceeded the permitted depth, but we are now focusing on the search and rescue operation,” he said.
The University of Genoa confirmed that the victims include a professor of marine biology, her daughter and two young researchers.
They dived in Vaavu Atoll, about 90 minutes by speedboat from the capital Malé.
Police said the sea was particularly rough in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday when the divers disappeared, and warnings were issued to passenger boats and fishermen.
The Maldives consists of 1,192 small coral islands spread over about 800 km along the equator in the Indian Ocean. It is a popular luxury holiday destination among divers, who often stay at secluded resorts or on boats.
The Italian diver whose body was found on Thursday has not yet been officially identified.
The Maldivian National Defense Force, which is coordinating the operation, said the body was found in a cave at a depth of 60 meters.
According to the police, the Italians were on a boat.
Diving and water sports accidents are relatively rare in this South Asian region, although several fatal incidents have been reported in recent years.
Local media reports that at least 112 tourists have died in sea-related incidents in the archipelago in the past six years, including 42 in diving or snorkelling accidents.