(Photo: Mohamed Afrah/AFP)
Italian divers who died in the Maldives may have taken the wrong tunnel into a cave and died in a dead end, the head of the company that retrieved their bodies from the cave told AFP on Thursday.
Finnish divers working for Dan Europe found their bodies in the cave complex, about 50m below the surface in this archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
“The bodies were found together in part of the cave. Based on the layout of the cave, they may have gotten lost,” company CEO Laura Marroni told AFP.
The Italian divers included a marine biology professor with years of experience, her daughter, two young researchers and their guide, who lived in the Maldives.
Maroela Media earlier reported that a search was launched on Thursday last week after the group did not return from a dive.
The cave, an underwater system that stretches hundreds of meters through several chambers and internal passages, begins with a large, well-lit first chamber with a sandy bottom.
This is where the guide’s body was found earlier by Maldivian authorities during a previous operation.
At the end of this part of the cave is a passage, almost 30 m long and 3 m wide, which leads to a second chamber of the cave.
The corridor ends at a sandbar that can be easily crossed to get to the second room, but “which can limit visibility” when trying to get out again, Marroni said.
“The divers, who could not find the exit again, found themselves in a corridor to the left of the planned exit. However, this corridor was a dead end,” she said.
The four other bodies were found in this dead-end corridor.
Limited air supply
“Considering that they had a very limited supply of air and therefore only a few minutes available on the bottom, there probably wasn’t even time to make several attempts to find the right exit,” Marroni said.
An effort by the Maldivian National Defense Force (MNDF) to locate the bodies was earlier called off after one of its rescue workers died of complications from decompression on Saturday. The Finnish team was then called in.
The team consisted of three divers: one tasked with recovering the bodies, a second providing operational safety support, and a third documenting the operation and dive site.
The divers “were highly trained” and “did a comprehensive reconnaissance with us and developed a conservative dive plan, since no one knew the cave very well,” Marroni said.
“This kind of operation always involves great responsibility, takes an emotional toll and a strong desire to return bodies to their families,” she said.
The team brought the bodies to the surface on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The divers were due to return to the cave on Thursday to remove guide lines and operational equipment used during the recovery efforts in the cave system.
“Like at a crime scene, everything is documented, archived and then cleaned up,” said Marroni.
The photos and videos taken by the Finnish team during the operation will be shared with the Maldivian authorities. They are investigating how the Italians were allowed to descend to a depth of 60 m.
This country in the Indian Ocean allows tourists to dive only to a maximum depth of 30 m.
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.