{"id":671854,"date":"2026-05-15T04:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671854\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T04:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:32:10","slug":"mother-daughter-among-five-dead-in-horror-scuba-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671854\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother, daughter among five dead in horror scuba accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five people have died on a scuba diving excursion in the Maldives, Italy’s<\/a> foreign ministry has announced.The five people, who were all Italian nationals, were scuba diving off Vaavu Atoll, the ministry said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The divers are reported to have died while attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 metres,” the statement read.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Monica Montefalcone, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, and Muriel Oddenino are among five tourists dead in the Maldives. (Instagram)<\/p>\n

“The reconstruction of the incident is still underway by the Maldivian authorities.”<\/p>\n

The Maldives defence force said in a statement that one body had been found in a cave 60 metres below the ocean’s surface.<\/p>\n

The other four bodies were also believed to be in the cave, with a “high risk” search operation underway.<\/p>\n

The group was reported missing by the crew of the boat they had ridden out on when they failed to surface.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The Maldives is a popular tourist destination. (Getty)<\/p>\n

The University of Genoa identified four of the victims on social media.<\/p>\n

“The University of Genoa expresses its deepest condolences for the sudden and tragic passing of Monica Montefalcone, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, Muriel Oddenino, and Federico Gualtieri,” the institution’s X account said.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Montefalcone was an associate professor of ecology at the university and a marine biology expert.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Oddenino was a research assistant at the same university, while Gualtieri was a recent graduate.\ufeff<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five people have died on a scuba diving excursion in the Maldives, Italy’s foreign ministry has announced.The five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-671854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}