The last words of one of the marine biologists who died in a scuba diving accident in the Maldives were a tribute to the lifelong passion that ultimately cost her life.<\/p>\n
Monica Montefalcone was among the five Italians vanished during a deep-water\u00a0dive<\/a>\u00a0and presumed trapped inside a cave 200 feet underwater in the Indian Ocean island nation Thursday \u2014 in what officials called the single worst diving accident the idyllic nation has ever seen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is fundamental to observe the underwater environment \u2014 which remains far too unknown to the general public \u2014 whether with our own eyes or through the lens of a robot,\u201d Montefalcone wrote to a colleague Wednesday night around 10:15 pm, a few hours before the fatal dive.<\/p>\n Montefalcone had 20 years of experience diving in the Maldvives and more than 5,000 dives under her belt. Greenpeace via AP<\/p>\n Montefalcone, 51, an award-winning researcher from the University of Genoa in Italy, was on a work trip to the Maldives to monitor the effects of\u00a0climate change\u00a0on tropical biodiversity. <\/p>\n An experienced diver, she travelled with her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, 22, a student at the university, and research fellow Muriel Oddenino, 31 \u2014 who both died in the dive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only certainty I have is that my wife is among the best divers on the face of the earth,\u201d Montefalcone\u2019s husband<\/a> Carlo Sommacal told La Republica<\/a>. \u201cShe\u2019s never been a reckless person.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe would have never jeopardized the life of our daughter or any other young people.\u201d<\/p>\n The others were Federico Gualtieri, 31, a marine biology master\u2019s\u00a0graduate from the university, who wrote his thesis on coral diversity in the Maldives, and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, 44, a former banker who moved to the Maldives eight years ago to pursue his passion to dive.<\/p>\n Diving instructor\u2019s Gianluca Benedetti\u2019s body was the only one recovered Thursday. Albatros Top Boat<\/p>\n Only one body, that of Benedetti\u2019s, has been recovered inside the cave near the Vaavu Atoll. Rescuers found him around 6:15 p.m. Thursday, before they had to come up, and the weather turned, halting the search.<\/p>\n The other four bodies are believed to be inside the cave, according to local authorities. The weather was too bad Friday to dive, and the search is scheduled to resume Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a particularly complex dive because the cave is divided into three separate, interconnected segments,\u201d said Italian Ambassador Damiano Francovigh. \u201cThe Maldivian divers were only able to enter the first two, then had to come up to allow time for decompression.\u201d<\/p>\n Montefalcone\u2019s husband said she was one of the \u201cbest divers on the face of the earth.\u201d Network4<\/p>\n The divers were all experienced, adding to the mystery of what caused them to vanish underwater.<\/p>\n The morning of the dive the Maldives National Defence Force issued a yellow level two alert \u2014 warning of increasingly \u201cstrong winds\u201d and \u201crough seas\u201d caused by an intensifying monsoon, urging special caution to divers and advising vessels to avoid unnecessary travel.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there really was a yellow alert in effect, they must have gone diving beforehand, and something must have happened down there,\u201d said Sommacal.<\/p>\n Montefalcone was a marine biologist at the University of Genoa in Italy on a research mission in the Maldives. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n He said Montefalcone, who had more than 5,000 dives under her belt, usually dived with a GoPro and thinks recovering it, along with his wife\u2019s body, might provide clues as to what happened.<\/p>\n The university was quick to distance itself from the tragedy, saying that though researchers were there on a scientific mission, the fatal dive wasn\u2019t part of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scuba diving activity was in no way part of the activities envisaged by the scientific mission but was carried out in a personal capacity\u201d the university said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow, was accompanying Montefalcone on the Maldives scientific mission. Muriel Oddenino \/ Facebook<\/p>\n The cave is about 200 feet long and 160 feet below the surface \u2014 double the Maldives\u2019 recreational diving depth limit of 100 feet \u2014 meaning the divers likely had a technical diving certification and specialized decompression equipment.<\/p>\n The five divers had gone out for an 11 a.m. dive that was supposed to last an hour and never resurfaced. <\/p>\n The crew looked for them with the boat, before calling the Coast Guard at 1:45 p.m., who dispatched a search team.<\/p>\n Local officials called the tragedy the single worst diving accident the Maldives has ever seen. EMEGINE \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n In December, another experienced diver died in the Maldives. Elaine Richmond, 70, from the United Kingdom, drowned after being pulled into a \u201cstrong current\u201d off the island resort of Ellaidhoo, the coroner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last words of one of the marine biologists who died in a scuba diving accident in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12094,5,12049,1316,12117,243],"class_list":{"0":"post-16712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-diving","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-maldives","11":"tag-research","12":"tag-scuba-divers","13":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}