A rescuer has died during an ongoing search for the bodies of four Italian nationals who are still missing following a fatal diving accident on Thursday. A fifth body has already been recovered.
A rescuer from the Maldives National Defense Forces involved in the search for the bodies died Saturday after arriving in hospital in a critical condition. The MNDF confirmed the news in a post on X, naming the rescuer as Staff Sergeant Mohamed Mahadi.
Five Italian divers died during the Thursday incident while reportedly "attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 metres," the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said earlier this week.
According to the department, Minister Antonio Tajani is in contact with Italy’s ambassador in Colombo, Damiano Francovigh (who is also responsible for the Maldives), and the honorary consul in Malé, Giorgia Marazzi. They are on board the Coast Guard support vessel “Ghazee” to follow the recovery operations.
The “Duke of York,” the yacht the Italian divers had been sailing on, has since had its operating license suspended, according to the local Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation.
On Friday, severe weather forced authorities to temporarily suspend search operations, which have involved eight Maldivian divers.
The first two, ministry sources confirmed, have already pinpointed and marked the entrance to the series of caves where the Italian divers disappeared.
The Rome public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the incident.
Recreational dives in the archipelago are only allowed down to thirty metres, and diving to greater depths requires special permits.
The alarm was raised as soon as the group failed to return at the scheduled time after an hour-long dive, prompting witnesses to raise the alarm.
Local authorities are examining several theories to understand how the incident occurred. All the victims were highly experienced professionals with advanced diving certificates.
Some believe that the divers may have become disoriented inside the cave due to sand stirred up by the swell, or pointed to possible toxicity of the gases in their cylinders. Others think one of the divers may have become trapped and the others ran out of oxygen while trying to save them.
It also remains to be seen whether safety measures such as the “Ariadne’s thread” were carried out.
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