Posted on 05/16/2026 8:27:51 AM PDT by dynachrome
A Maldivian Coast Guard diver has died in the effort to recover the bodies of four Italian divers that officials believe are deep inside an underwater cave.
Five divers were killed in the scuba diving tragedy earlier this week, with only one victim’s body recovered so far.
Sergeant Major Mohamed Mahudhee became sick when the search resumed Saturday, 200 feet deep inside an underwater cave in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives President Dr Mohamed Muizzu confirmed. Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian National Defense Force, was rushed to the hospital, but didn’t survive.
His cause of death is underwater decompression sickness, officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I watched an episode about a tragic death in an underground cave by a spelunker, and now YT keeps sending me tons of cave diving tragedies and cave exploring tragedies.
Kids, never go spelunking or cave diving.
Some adventure takes a special kind of stupid. For that, people should be strictly on their own. It is not their right to pursue their heart’s desire and expect others to put their lives at risk as well.
“It’s easy. It’ll be fun. Lots of people do it.”
I’ll always remember the advice of my scuba instructor: People who dive in caves die in caves.
Report on the first disaster:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4379309/posts
Five tourists ‘including university professor and her daughter’ die during diving excursion in 160ft-deep cave in Maldives
Daily Mail UK ^ | May 14, 2026 | SABRINA PENTY and TARYN KAUR PEDLER
Posted on 5/14/2026, 5:50:13 PM by Red Badger
These people may have been divers trained in open water, but the article does not say anytrhing about them having any cave diving training. This is exactly how divers get killed. They went way beyond their capabilities as well as their planning and training.
I’ve been a caver for over 40 years, but I have never dove a cave and never will.
Yes, cave diving is very dangerous, because it is very easy to get lost in them.
Both cave diving and diving at depths of 200 feet are something only the most highly-trained divers should even attempt. My guess is that the tourists just had a general open water certification (or maybe even an advanced open water cert - which still doesn’t prepare you for deep water and caves) and went ahead with their dive. I have an advanced certification and I’d never in my right mind attempt this.
Novice diving at 200 feet is hard enough - going into a cave at that depth is just plain stupid.
That place looks like it was designed for fishin’.
I’d like to try it.
It's a once in a lifetime experience...
Confused
The op says only 1body has been recovered (other news reports say the same thing)
OMG!LOL
Have you ever seen the videos of divers going into the Sinotes of the Yucatan Peninsula and then going for hundreds of yards into the aquifers (in some cases, getting close enough to the sea that there’s a layer of fresh water above the salt). Quite eerie - roots of jungle trees in the narrow passageways, I’m surprised anyone made it there and back alive.
Yea, there are a lot of “daring” people out there doing all kinds of crazy things.
I hope the guy who attempted the recovery was being well compensated. There are not that many reasons to recover the bodies of the lost divers. One is the need for “closure” and the other is so that the next stupid people to go down there don’t get freaked out by dead bodies. Other than that I would say leave them there. They died doing what they loved.
There is a good book called Shadow Divers some people who went way deep in the ocean to discover what happened with some U-boats that were sunk during World War II (eleven). They dived 230 feet and spent several years on their quest.
It was very detailed about the need to take time returning to the surface. They formulated their air tanks to have helium and argon in some proportion to reduce the amount of nitrogen in tanks. They had spare tanks with them and they took hours to return to the surface. 200 feet is really deep to be touristing around in sea caves.
I worry that I will be in my late 90’s or early 100’s, lying on my deathbed thinking how I missed having so much fun scuba diving in sea caves, rock climbing el Capitan, BASE jumping, sky diving, racing my car at a hundred miles per hour, instead of my generally boring life. Not really!
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