Overview
- A privately organised cave dive at the Vaavu Atoll ended in the deaths of five Italian divers and one Maldivian rescue diver after the team failed to return from a deep passage in the Devana‑Kundu/Dhekunu Kandu cave system.
- Specialist teams completed technically difficult recoveries from chambers about 50–60 metres deep and located four of the Italians in a rear side passage that appears to be a dead end.
- Investigators and external experts are testing dive computers, GoPro footage, breathing‑gas supplies and clothing because reports suggest much of the group's kit was recreational scuba gear not suited to deep, mixed‑gas cave diving.
- Experts are weighing physical causes such as a Venturi‑effect current and sand or visual illusions that can hide or mimic cave exits and lead to disorientation and rapid air depletion.
- Italian authorities will repatriate the bodies for autopsies and forensic work, and the Rome public prosecutor has opened a negligence probe that will examine permits, equipment and the expedition's organisation.