DRAGGED UNDER

Bombshell Theory for How Divers Drowned in Cave Emerges

Authorities have now managed to retrieve the bodies of all five researchers who died in the tragic incident.

An expert has offered a novel explanation for what might have caused the death of five researchers in what is thought to be the deadliest diving incident in the history of the Maldives. Alfonso Bolognini, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine, has suggested that a current may have sucked the team of five Italian divers—led by celebrated marine ecologist Monica Montefalcone, who was accompanied on the trip by her daughter—into an underwater cave. His hypothesis comes as the last two bodies, among them Montefalcone’s daughter Giorgia Sommacal, were finally retrieved on Wednesday. Investigators in the Maldives announced Tuesday that another possible explanation was that the group had gone deeper into the cave than they had either expected or planned for. Montefalcone’s husband, Carlo Sommacal, has dismissed that theory, insisting his wife was “always conscientious,” and that she would never have “recklessly” put her team at risk. Other theories include that the dive may have been disrupted by bad weather and poor underwater visibility.