Overview
- Five Italian divers died during a cave dive in the Thinwana Kandu system on May 14, with four bodies recovered about 60 meters inside a narrow tunnel and a fifth found earlier at the cave entrance.
- Elite recovery divers later entered the roughly 200‑meter cave to locate and retrieve the four bodies found together in a dead-end passage under very confined, dark conditions.
- DAN Europe published photographs taken by diver Sami Pakkarinen that show how easily coral and sand on the cave floor are stirred and can reduce visibility to near zero.
- Experts now favor a sediment-driven optical illusion—compared with earlier theories of strong currents—as the most plausible reason the group missed the exit and exhausted their air supplies, with reports that they used 12‑liter sport cylinders.
- The recovered bodies were repatriated to Italy and arrivals at Milan‑Malpensa have been reported while Italian and Maldivian authorities have opened investigations and autopsies and family rites are being arranged.