{"id":672882,"date":"2026-05-15T16:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/672882\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:08:10","slug":"five-divers-die-following-cave-diving-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/672882\/","title":{"rendered":"Five divers die following cave diving incident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Five Italians have died following a scuba diving accident in the Maldives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The group was exploring a series of underwater caves at a depth of around 50 metres in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday, Italy&#8217;s foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Four of the divers were affiliated with the University of Genoa, including a professor and her daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Monica Montefalcone worked as an associate professor of ecology and her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, was a student of biomedical engineering at the university.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Muriel Oddenino was a research assistant and Federico Gualtieri was a recent marine ecology master&#8217;s graduate from the university.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman with blonde hair smiling wearing a hat\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b2453a763d24f6664ea56cf1a6fcb8c9.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Muriel Oddenino was one of the five divers who died in the scuba accident in the Maldives. (Supplied: Facebook)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The fifth diver was dive operator Gianluca Benedetti.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In a <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/unige.it\/en\/news\/cordoglio-14mag2026\" data-component=\"Link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a>, the University of Genoa paid tribute to the divers who worked at and attended the university.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The University of Genoa expresses its deep sorrow for the sudden and tragic death of Monica Montefalcone, associate professor of ecology at the Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences \u2014 DISTAV, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, a UniGe student in biomedical engineering, Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow at DISTAV, and Federico Gualtieri, a recent UniGe graduate in marine biology and ecology,&#8221; it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The sympathy of the entire university community goes out to the families, colleagues and students who shared their human and professional journey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Authorities said the bodies were found inside a 60-metre-long cave.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The foreign ministry said an investigation was underway, adding that the Italian Embassy in Sri Lanka was working to contact the victims&#8217; families and provide consular assistance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Reuters\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five Italians have died following a scuba diving accident in the Maldives. The group was exploring a series&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28222,53168,24675,324658,324657,43,2328,117117,324656,44,324654,41,39,42,40,324655],"class_list":["post-672882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accident","tag-deaths","tag-diving","tag-federico-gualtieri","tag-giorgia-sommacal","tag-headlines","tag-italy","tag-maldives","tag-monica-monfalcone","tag-news","tag-scuba","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-university-of-genoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672882","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=672882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}