Divers killed in Maldives cave may have taken wrong tunnel: "No way out"

World Divers killed in Maldives cave may have taken wrong tunnel, recovery firm CEO says: "No way out" May 21, 2026 / 8:16 AM EDT / CBS/AFP Add CBS News on Google Five Italians killed in a Maldives diving incident may have taken the wrong tunnel on their way out of an underwater cave, the head of the company that recovered their bodies said Thursday.Finnish divers working for DAN Europe found the Italians in a corridor with a dead end inside the cave complex, which sits about 165 feet underwater, Italy's la Repubblica daily reported."There was no way out from there," the company's CEO Laura Marroni was quoted by la Repubblica as saying.The Italian divers were identified as Monica Montefalcone, an associate ecology professor at the University of Genoa; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti. A Maldivian military diver also died while searching for the missing Italians.Montefalcone and Oddenino were in the Maldives on an official scientific mission to monitor marine environments and study the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity, the University of Genoa said in a statement Friday.The Finnish divers found the cave near Alimatha begins with a large, very bright cavern with a sandy bottom, Marroni told the newspaper.At the end of this room is a corridor where there is little light, but "visibility, using artificial lighting, was excellent," she said. The corridor is almost 30 meters long and 3 meters across and leads to a second chamber of the cave, which is a large, round space with no natural light.Between the corridor and the second chamber is a sandbank.It is easy to get over the sandbank into the second chamber, but when you turn around to leave again the bank almost looks like a wall, hiding the corridor, the paper said.On the left of the sandbank is another corridor — only a few dozen meters long. "The divers' bodies were all found inside, as if th...