{"id":455058,"date":"2026-05-18T15:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T15:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455058\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T15:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T15:25:13","slug":"bodies-of-four-italian-divers-found-in-maldives-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455058\/","title":{"rendered":"Bodies of four Italian divers found in Maldives \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Rescuers have located the bodies of four Italian divers believed to be deep inside an underwater cave in a Maldive atoll, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/italy\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/italy\/\">Italy<\/a>\u2019s foreign ministry has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The searches had resumed on Monday after being suspended following the death of a local military diver during a perilous mission to try to reach them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Five Italian divers are believed to have died while exploring a cave at a depth of about 50m  in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday, according to the Italian ministry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 30m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The body of one Italian \u2013 a diving instructor \u2013 was found earlier outside the cave.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Members of the Maldives marine police search for the missing divers. Photograph: Sophia Nasif\/EPA\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/F2OTU2TNIPFBLLQKTNNN4IIHFM.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"532\"\/>Members of the Maldives marine police search for the missing divers. Photograph: Sophia Nasif\/EPA <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Three Finnish divers had arrived in the Maldives on Sunday to draw up a fresh plan in the search for the bodies of the other four, who were believed to be inside the cave system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Maldives presidential spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search was suspended after Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian national defence force, died of underwater decompression sickness after being transferred to a hospital in the capital on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Shareef said on Sunday that three Finnish divers, experts in deep and cave diving, had arrived in the archipelago nation and joined the Maldives coastguard in a meeting aimed at mapping a new search strategy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Rough weather has repeatedly hampered rescue efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Initial teams had already dived to identify and mark the entrance to the cave system where the Italians disappeared. The cause of the deaths remains under investigation. \u2013 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescuers have located the bodies of four Italian divers believed to be deep inside an underwater cave in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,102,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-455058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-italy","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}