FROM THE DEPTHS First divers’ bodies are recovered in ‘complex’ Maldives ‘shark cave’ mission – as mysterious tragedy gets even murkier

EXPERT divers have recovered the first bodies of four Italian tourists who died during a cave dive in the Maldives last week.

The bodies of Monica Montefalcone, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, Muriel Oddenino, and Federico Gualtieri were discovered on Monday.

The group – accompanied by Gianluca Benedetti who was found last week – were located deep inside Thinwana Kandu cave, also known as “shark cave”.

Two have now been brought to the surface, officials said. The remaining two will be recovered on Wednesday in an operation that will be “technically complex”.

Specialised equipment including underwater scooters and rebreathers which recycle air have been used for the recovery, provided by the UK and Australia.

Each attempt to dive and retrieve the bodies lasts about three hours – and it is immediately aborted if any obstacles are encountered.

The Finnish divers, Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund, and Patrik Grönqvist, have worked on some of the world’s most difficult missions.

The elite trio can dive to depths of nearly 500ft – a key skill which helped them locate the tourists.

The unit was assembled in 48 hours and dispatched by DAN Europe to search the Alimatha cave complex near the Vaavu Atoll.

The organisation said the coming days “will be dedicated to the highly delicate recovery procedures”.

“This marks an important milestone in an operation that remains technically demanding, emotionally challenging, and operationally complex,” DAN Europe added.

Perilous local search efforts were hampered by bad weather over the weekend.

A Maldivian military rescue diver Mohamed Mahudhee died from decompression illness on Saturday – highlighting the mission’s extreme danger and bringing the total death toll to six.

It comes as mystery continues to swirl around the tragedy that now marks one of the worst single diving accidents in the nation’s history.

The group, who were on a university research trip, went missing while exploring a cave at a depth of about 160ft on Thursday morning.

The Italian foreign ministry said causes of death had not yet been established.

It has been revealed that the Duke of York yacht, from which the group launched the expedition, did not have a permit allowing dives of more than 100ft.

Mohamed Hussain Shareef, chief spokesperson at the Maldives president’s office, said the government had granted the group a permit to research soft corals in the Devana Kandu site.

But said: “What we didn’t know was that it was cave diving.”

The Italian tour operator that managed the diving trip denied authorising or knowing about the expedition that exceeded local limits, its lawyer told Corriere della Sera on Saturday.

Maldivian authorities are investigating multiple possible factors behind the tragedy, including whether the group of five descended far deeper than expected.

In another twist, a sixth diver understood to be a female student from the university, had reportedly been preparing to dive with the group but decided at the last moment not to enter the water. She has been helping with the investigation.

Montefalcone’s husband Carlo Sommacal told Italian media that his wife would have never put her daughter or others at risk.

He described her as “one of the best divers in the world” who had carried out about 5,000 dives and was “never reckless.”

But a former military diver claimed that “rules were broken” in the high-risk cave – questioning why the group were allowed on the mission in the first place.

Shafraz Naeem, a Maldivian diving veteran who has explored the Devana Kandu cave system over 30 times, said the entrance to the cave is about 55 metres deep.

Light reaches only the first chamber and it is pitch dark after that.

“It is incredibly dangerous to conduct dives at these depths on compressed air,” Naeem said.

He believes the instructor “intentionally swam away” from the group.

He told the Daily Mail: “Maybe he legged it up before he ran out of air. The rest of the group died in that third chamber and Benedetti died in the passageway trying to get out.”

The use of ropes, or lines is mandatory in certain caves to guide divers. But Naeem said no ropes were found within the cave walls when the bodies were recovered.

Experts say that as a diver goes deeper, the pressure around them rises and oxygen can begin to damage body tissue.

But Riccardo Gambacorta, former diving instructor of Oddenino, does not believe the Italians died of oxygen intoxication.

He said: “My personal opinion is that an unexpected incident may have occurred underwater. They essentially did not anticipate a certain situation.”