Maldives scuba diving tourists' deaths may be explained by missing GoPro

A missing GoPro may provide answers for the families of the scuba divers who tragically died in the Maldives while exploring caves last week.

Five Italian tourists died on Thursday (May 14) after they vanished in the waters of Vaavu Atoll.

Muriel Oddenino, Gianluca Benedetti, and Federico Gualtieri, as well as Monica Montefalcone and her 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, passed away after they failed to resurface from the dive.

Sergeant Major Mohammed Mahudhee also lost his life while searching for the bodies of the tourists .

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu said in a statement: "The death of a diver of the Maldives National Defense Force while diving in search of missing tourists is a matter of deep sorrow for me and for every Maldivian citizen. This is heartbreaking news."

Staff Sgt Mohamed Mahdhee tragically died in the rescue effort, making the death toll stand at six (Maldives Government)

The search operation for the victims has since been paused, with authorities awaiting the arrival of three Finnish expert divers.

The possibility of a missing GoPro from the doomed Maldives dive

Monica Montefalcone's husband, Carlo Sommacal, has since spoken out to Italian news outlet La Repubblica, and said that his wife was an 'expert' in scuba diving having done 5,000 dives.

"She knows what to do even in times of difficulty," he said.

Sommacal also revealed that his wife typically took a GoPro on her dives, which could provide some much-needed answers to the grieving families as to what happened to their loved ones.

Monica Montefalcone's husband has said she'd often take a GoPro on her scuba dives (Instagram)

Monica Montefalcone's daughter Giorgia also died during the dive (Instagram)

"I don't know if she had one the other day. If they find it, maybe from there we can understand what happened," he told the outlet.

Four of the divers were from the University of Genoa, who were on a scuba expedition in the popular tourist destination.

In a statement, the university said: "The University of Genoa expresses its deep sorrow for the sudden and tragic death of Monica Montefalcone, associate professor of Ecology at the Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences - DISTAV, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, a UniGe student in Biomedical Engineering, Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow at DISTAV, and Federico Gualtieri, a recent UniGe graduate in Marine Biology and Ecology.

Gianluca Benedetti died during the scuba trip (Albatros Top Boat)

"The sympathy of the entire university community goes out to the families, colleagues and students who shared their human and professional journey."

John Volanthen, a British Cave Rescue Council diving officer, spoke to CNN regarding the cave's depth, which he says 'unquestionably hampering' recovery efforts.

"It's essentially a very long way into the cave and normally, cave divers would lay a guideline to find their way out," the expert said.

"That's potentially what happened with the missing party."

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