{"id":963219,"date":"2026-05-16T06:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963219\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:24:17","slug":"maldives-dive-deaths-student-emerges-as-sole-survivor-of-horror-maldives-dive-tragedy-after-last-minute-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963219\/","title":{"rendered":"Maldives dive deaths: Student emerges as sole survivor of horror Maldives dive tragedy after last-minute decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

A student became the sole survivor of the Maldives diving tragedy<\/a> after making a vital last-minute decision.<\/p>\n

The young woman, studying at Italy’s University of Genoa, suddenly decided to remain on the yacht – despite having her equipment prepared and being ready to enter the water with her group.<\/p>\n

She eventually stayed aboard the vessel, named the Duke of York, while her five companions embarked on the deadly 160-foot dive into an underwater cave.<\/p>\n

The reason for her decision remains unknown.<\/p>\n

She is now considered the “only direct survivor of that day” and a “key witness for reconstructing the final moments before the accident”, according to Italian newspaper Libero Quotidiano.<\/p>\n

The student travelled home to her family on Friday.<\/p>\n

The dive’s five victims included Monica Montefalcone, a marine biology professor at the University of Genoa, and her 20-year-old daughter Giorgia Sommacal.<\/p>\n

Three other divers also perished in the tragedy.<\/p>\n

Muriel Oddenino from Turin, Gianluca Benedetti from Padua, and Federico Gualtieri from Borgomanero all failed to return to the surface.<\/p>\n

\"DukeThe divers had been aboard the Duke of York, described as a luxury live-aboard diving vessel | LIVEABOARD<\/p>\n

The group had left on Thursday morning to explore the Vaavu Atoll.<\/p>\n

They vanished near Alimatha, one of the region’s most popular diving locations.<\/p>\n

Authorities were alerted at approximately 1.45pm local time after the divers did not resurface at around midday.<\/p>\n

Their bodies were discovered during the subsequent search and rescue operation.<\/p>\n

Experts believe oxygen toxicity and panic may have caused the deaths.<\/p>\n

DEATH AT SEA – READ MORE:<\/p>\n

“It’s likely that something went wrong with the tanks,” Pulmonologist Claudio Micheletto told Italian outlet Adnkronos on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Death from oxygen toxicity, or hyperoxia, is one of the most dramatic deaths that can occur during a dive a horrible end,” added Micheletto, the director of pulmonology at the University Hospital of Verona.<\/p>\n

Alfonso Bolognini, president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine, suggested panic may also have played a part.<\/p>\n

“Inside a cave at a depth of 50 metres, all it takes is a problem for a diver or a panic attack for a diver,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The agitation will cause the water to become cloudy and can impair visibility,” he said, which can lead to “fatal errors”.<\/p>\n

\"Diver<\/p>\n

‘Inside a cave at a depth of 50 metres, all it takes is a problem for a diver or a panic attack for a diver,’ Alfonso Bolognini said<\/p>\n

| GETTY<\/p>\n

But he stressed: “It’s not easy to say now what exactly may have happened at the bottom of the sea.”<\/p>\n

Search operations were suspended on Friday due to poor weather conditions.<\/p>\n

Winds at the dive site reached between 25 and 30 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

Local officials confirmed this was the worst single diving accident in the Maldives’ history.<\/p>\n

The island nation is made up of 1,192 tiny coral islands spread across 500 miles of the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

The Maldives National Defence Force deployed aircraft and speedboats after the group was reported missing.<\/p>\n

One body was recovered from inside the cave, which extends to approximately 60 metres below the waves.<\/p>\n

Authorities believe the remaining four victims are in the same cave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A student became the sole survivor of the Maldives diving tragedy after making a vital last-minute decision. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,2199,12,512,14,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-963219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-sgg","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116582827071501207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}