Another diving disaster in the Maldives, during an operation to recover the bodies of Italians killed in an underwater cave: Authorities in the island nation said Saturday afternoon that a Coast Guard officer sent to retrieve the bodies of the Italians killed during a cave-diving trip about 60 meters below sea level was also killed.
According to reports in local media, Sgt. Maj. Mohamed Mahudhee died at a hospital after being rushed there following a bout of decompression sickness during an attempt to locate the four bodies still inside the cave. In the original disaster on Thursday, five Italian citizens drowned — one of them has already been located — and with Mahudhee’s death, the toll in the cave rose to six. Decompression sickness is a condition caused by changes in the solubility of gases such as nitrogen in body tissues due to changes in ambient pressure during a dive, which can cause dangerous bubbles to form and endanger the diver.
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Diver Mohamed Mahudhee, who was killed during the rescue operation, and footage of the entrance to the underwater cave distributed by Italian media
Announcing Mahudhee’s death, the Maldives military said: "His courage, sacrifice and service will be remembered forever. Our deepest condolences to his family and colleagues." The president of the island nation, Mohamed Hussain Shareef, said his death underscored the immense difficulty facing the divers taking part in the mission to recover the bodies.
According to the Italian Foreign Ministry, the underwater cave is made up of three large chambers connected by narrow passages. So far, rescuers have managed to search two of the chambers, but the operation is proceeding slowly out of concern for their safety. Before the announcement of Mahudhee’s death, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said rescuers were expected to continue Saturday and search the third chamber, but it was unclear how the latest disaster would affect the operation. So far, one body has been recovered, identified as Italian diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti. According to the Maldives president, it was found Thursday at the entrance to the cave. He estimated that the four others had gone inside.
The disaster occurred Thursday in Vaavu Atoll and is already being described as the worst diving disaster in the history of the Maldives. The five Italians were killed while diving into the underwater cave from the luxury yacht "Duke of York," a dive vessel with living quarters, near Alimatha — one of the most popular diving sites in the island chain. According to reports, 25 Italians were on the yacht, but only five of them went diving and disappeared.
Alongside diving instructor Benedetti, whose body has already been recovered, the four others who were killed were identified as 51-year-old Monica Montefalcone, a respected marine biologist who served as a professor of tropical marine ecology and underwater sciences at the University of Genoa; her 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Somacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; and researcher Muriel Oddenino.
The University of Genoa said Friday evening that Montefalcone and Oddenino were taking part in a scientific mission aimed at monitoring the marine environment in the Maldives and studying the effects of climate change on biodiversity in tropical areas. However, the university stressed that the cave-diving trip was not part of the research mission but was undertaken privately. The university said two of the other victims — daughter Giorgia and biologist Gualtieri — were not part of the mission.
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The area in the Maldives where the disaster occurred; diving is permitted to a depth of 30 meters, but in practice divers go deeper
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Prof. Montefalcone, who died along with her daughter; the University of Genoa clarified: the dive was not part of her research mission
(Photo: Section 27A of the Copyright Law)
Local police have opened an investigation into the disaster, but the cause of death remains unknown. Authorities are not ruling out several scenarios, including the possibility that bad weather affected the divers’ visibility. Weather conditions in the area were difficult, and the local meteorological service had issued a "yellow" warning beforehand. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that the group may have lost its way inside the underwater cave. Police are also examining the possibility that one of the five became trapped in the cave while the others tried to rescue that person, ran out of air or panicked. The Daily Mail reported that one of the leading theories is oxygen poisoning — a condition in which the gas mixture in a tank is unsuitable and oxygen becomes toxic at certain depths.
Carlo Somacal, Montefalcone’s husband and Giorgia’s father, expressed hope Friday evening that rescuers would find the GoPro camera his wife used to document her diving trips. "I don’t know if she had one that day. If they find it, maybe we will be able to understand what happened," he told La Repubblica. He added that he was certain she would not have endangered her colleagues if she had known in advance that the diving conditions were problematic. "My wife was among the best divers in the world," he said. "She would never have risked our daughter’s life or the lives of others. Something must have happened down there. Maybe one of them got into trouble, maybe something with the oxygen tanks, I have no idea." Somacal said diving instructor Benedetti, who was also killed, was meticulous: "He checked everything: the tanks, the weather conditions. He was no fool. It must have been fate. They took every possible precaution."
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At least 112 tourists have died in maritime incidents over the past five years; the Maldives
(Photo: Shutterstock)
The Maldives is made up of 1,192 small coral islands spread across about 800 kilometers in the Indian Ocean and is an especially popular destination for divers. Local regulations allow diving to a maximum depth of about 30 meters, but experienced professional divers are known to descend to greater depths. At least 112 tourists have been killed in maritime incidents in the Maldives over the past five years, including 42 in diving accidents.
First published: 19:00, 05.16.26