Specialist divers from Finland have retrieved the bodies of two Italian divers from deep inside an underwater cave in the Maldives, local officials have confirmed, as authorities work to understand what caused the deaths of five people last week in one of the Indian Ocean nation's most complex rescue operations in recent memory.
The group of five Italian divers entered what is known locally as "shark cave" near Vaavu Atoll — a remote coral atoll roughly 70 kilometres southeast of the Maldivian capital Malé — on Thursday under rough conditions, with a yellow weather warning in effect for the area. One diver's body was recovered shortly after the accident. A Maldivian rescue diver then died on Saturday, apparently from decompression sickness — a dangerous condition that can occur when a diver ascends too quickly from depth — during the subsequent search operation. Finnish cave-diving specialists, members of the Divers Alert Network Europe, located the four remaining bodies on Monday in the chamber furthest from the cave's entrance, at a depth of around 60 metres. On Tuesday, after a two-hour operation, they brought two of the bodies to the surface, handing them to Maldivian coastguard divers at a depth of 30 metres for the final ascent. The remaining two bodies are expected to be recovered on Wednesday.
The Finnish team's involvement was critical. Unlike standard scuba divers, they are trained specifically in cave diving at extreme depths and carry specialised equipment that allows extended time underwater in confined, low-visibility environments. The shark cave's entrance sits at 47 metres, with its various chambers reaching depths of up to 60 metres — conditions that Maldivian authorities described as presenting serious challenges in terms of space, visibility and strong currents.
The Italian group was led by Monica Montefalcone, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Genoa, accompanied by research fellow Muriel Oddenino, Montefalcone's daughter Giorgia Sommacal, recent graduate Federico Gualtieri, and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, who was also the boat operations manager. While Montefalcone and Oddenino were in the Maldives conducting legitimate scientific research on the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity, the cave dive itself was undertaken in a personal capacity. Maldivian authorities said the group had a permit to dive to 50 metres but had not disclosed their intention to enter the cave. The University of Genoa stated it had not authorised any deep-sea diving as part of the research mission, and noted it had suspended dive authorisations in March 2024 pending new internal protocols. Montefalcone's widower, Carlo Sommacal, pushed back sharply, telling Italian newspaper La Repubblica that his late wife was among the world's foremost scientific authorities on Maldivian corals, and questioned how her work could have been unknown to the institution.
Authorises hope that recovering the bodies will yield critical clues about what went wrong. A Maldivian government spokesperson noted that cave diving at such depths is "a completely different discipline with its own challenges and risks," adding that multiple factors may have contributed to the tragedy. The case has raised broader questions about the oversight of scientific diving expeditions and the regulatory frameworks governing deep-water research in ecologically sensitive areas.