Divers killed in Maldives cave may have taken wrong tunnel, says rescue company chief: “There’s no way out”

Five Italians who died in a diving accident in the Maldives may have taken the wrong tunnel when exiting an underwater cave, the head of the company he brought back their bodies said Thursday.

Finnish divers working for DAN Europe found the Italians in a dead-end passageway inside the cave, which sits about 165 meters underwater, reports Italy’s la Repubblica daily.

“There was no way out,” company CEO Laura Marroni was quoted as saying by la Repubblica.

I Italian divers identified as Monica Montefalcone, associate professor of ecology at the University of Genoa; his daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving coach Gianluca Benedetti. Maldivian the military diver also died while searching for missing Italians.

Montefalcone and Oddenino were in the Maldives on an official scientific mission to monitor marine environments and study the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity, the University of Genoa said in a statement on Friday.

Finnish divers discovered a cave near Alimatha that begins with a large, prominent cave with a sandy bottom, Marroni told the newspaper.

At the end of this room is a tunnel where there is little light, but “the visibility, using artificial lights, was very good,” he said.

The passage is about 30 meters long and 3 meters wide and leads to the second chamber of the cave, which is a large, circular area with no natural light.

Between the corridor and the second room is a sand bank.

It’s easy to jump over the sand bank into the second room, but when you turn around to get out again, the bank is almost like a wall hiding the passage, the paper said.

To the left of the sandbank is another tunnel – only a few meters long.

“The bodies of the divers were all found inside, as if they were mistaking it for the right one,” said the newspaper.

If they had taken that passage by mistake, “then it would have been very difficult to come back, especially because of the low wind,” Marroni said.

The divers were using standard tanks, which meant they had very little time to visit the second cave, he said.

“We’re talking 10 minutes, maybe less,” Marroni said.

“Seeing that the road is not right and having little air, maybe after going back and forth, is scary. Then you breathe quickly and the air is less,” he said.

According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 Italian tourists were on board the “Duke of York”, including five divers who died.

Divers exceed recommended limits

Authorities in the Maldives are investigating how the Italians were allowed to go down to a depth of 60 meters when the Indian Ocean country allows tourists a depth of 30 meters.

Cave diving is a highly technical and dangerous activity that requires special training, equipment and strict safety rules. Dangers are greatest in areas where divers cannot go straight up and deep, especially when conditions are poor. Experts say it’s easy to get confused or lost inside the caves, especially since clouds of sediment can greatly reduce visibility.

Local officials called the incident the worst single diving accident in the history of the Maldives, a country of 1,192 small coral islands scattered about 500 kilometers across the equator in the Indian Ocean.

Accidents related to diving and water sports appear to be rare in the South Asian nation, although several fatal incidents have been reported in recent years.

A female British tourist died while diving in December, and her distraught 71-year-old husband died a few days later after falling ill.

A 26-year-old Japanese tourist went missing after a diving trip near the capital in June.

Local media reports say that at least 112 tourists have died in sea-related incidents in the past six years, and 42 of them were victims of diving or water skiing accidents.