The tragedy of the five Italian divers who died on Thursday while diving in the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, has added one more death this Saturday, that of one of the divers from the rescue teams, according to Italian media. The operations to recover the bodies are being complex and so far only one of the deceased has been found. The group had descended into a dangerous underwater cave in the Alimathà area, where they became trapped for reasons still unknown.
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The person who died this Saturday is a member of the Maldives army, Mohammed Mahudhee, who was transferred in serious condition to a hospital in the country, where he later died. Initial reports point to a decompression problem during the ascent to the surface, which may be due to a too rapid rise or excessive time at great depth.
The five Italian divers were very experienced and were participating in a scientific dive in the Thinwana Kandu cave, known as the Shark Cave, in the Vaavu atoll, also called Felidhoo. “They were collecting data, they were not on vacation,” said one of their companions, who assured that the weather conditions were good on the day of the incident. It was an annual trip organized every year for Italian marine scientists.
However, this Saturday a controversial factor has already emerged in the local press, which reports that the accident site is at a depth below the legal limit authorized for diving in the Asian country, 30 meters. The cave opens at 45 meters and descends through successive galleries and three chambers down to 60 meters.
It is possible that the group had requested the necessary permits from the authorities, but this point has not yet been clarified. The newspaper Mihaaru, one of the most important in the country, reports that an official investigation will be opened to find out if the expedition complied with the rules, although the Government has emphasized that the priority is to find the missing.
The only body was found in the second of the three cavities of the cave, that of Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor from Padua. His air tank was empty, which suggests that something blocked his way or he got lost. Search efforts tried this Saturday to access the last chamber of the underwater tunnel.
The other victims are Monica Montefalcone, associate professor of marine ecology at the University of Genoa and organizer of these trips; her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, 22 years old; Muriel Oddenino, a 31-year-old marine biologist from Piedmont; and Federico Gualtieri, 31 years old, from the same region, with a degree in Marine Biology and Ecology and a diving instructor.
Carlo Sommacal, Montefalcone’s husband, who lost his wife and daughter, said that his wife was “one of the best divers in the world,” was very cautious and would never have put their daughter in a risky situation.
There are 20 other Italians on the expedition, who waited in vain for their surfacing aboard the ship Duke of York, on which they were traveling. They raised the alarm when more than an hour passed, the agreed time for the dive. The boat could not return to port until this Saturday due to bad weather, and is now docked at the port of Malé, the capital. Authorities have suspended its license as a precautionary measure while investigations are ongoing. It had already been suspended in 2010, for reasons not specified, local Maldivian media have stated.
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