Sawt Falasteen - Italian divers in Maldives may have got lost in cave: recovery firm

Finnish divers working for Dan Europe found their bodies in a corridor with a dead end inside the cave complex, some 50 metres (165 feet) down in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

"The bodies were found together in an area of the cave. Based on the cave's layout, they may have got lost," the company's CEO Laura Marroni told AFP.

The Italian divers included a marine biology professor with many years of experience, her daughter, two young researchers, and their Maldives-based guide.

The alarm was sounded last Thursday after they failed to return from a dive.

The cave, an underwater system which extends for hundreds of meters through multiple chambers and internal passages, begins with a first large, bright cavern with a sandy bottom.

That is where the guide's body was found, in an earlier recovery operation by Maldivian authorities.

At the end of this cavern is a corridor, which is almost 30 metres long and three metres across, and which leads to a second chamber of the cave.

The corridor ends in a sandbank, which is easy to get over into a second chamber, but "which could limit visibility" when attempting to leave again, Marroni said.

"The divers, unable to find the exit corridor, found themselves in a corridor to the left of what would have been the exit, which, however, was a dead end," she said.

The dead-end corridor is where the four other bodies were found.

- 'Limited air supply' -

"Considering that they had a very limited air supply and therefore only a few minutes at the bottom, there probably wasn't even time for them to make numerous attempts to find the correct exit," said Marroni.

An attempt by the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) to recover them was called off after one of its rescuers died Saturday from decompression complications, and the Finnish team was called in.

It was made up of three divers: one tasked with recovering the bodies, the second with operational safety support, and the third documenting the recovery and dive site.

The divers "are highly trained" and "conducted an extensive reconnaissance with us, and developed a conservative dive plan, considering that no one knew the cave well", Marroni said.

"This type of operation always involves a great deal of responsibility, emotional toll, and a strong desire to return bodies to their families," she said.

The team recovered the bodies on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The divers were returning to the cave Thursday to remove guide lines and operational equipment used inside the cave system during the recovery efforts.

"Much like at a crime scene, everything is documented, archived, and then cleaned up," Marroni said.

The photos and videos taken by the Finnish team during the recovery operation will be shared with the Maldivian authorities, who are investigating how the Italians were allowed to descend to a depth of 60 metres.

The Indian Ocean country permits a maximum depth of 30 metres for tourists.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST