{"id":649,"date":"2026-05-18T00:59:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humanitystories.pics\/?p=649"},"modified":"2026-05-18T00:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:59:45","slug":"worlds-best-divers-in-race-against-time-to-recover-bodies-of-maldives-tourists-before-sharks-get-to-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humanitystories.pics\/?p=649","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s best divers in race against time to recover bodies of Maldives tourists before sharks get to them"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oxygen toxicity, panic may have killed 5 tourists on Maldives scuba dive: experts<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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An elite squad of divers\u00a0is in a race against time<\/a>\u00a0to recover the final bodies of the five Italians who died in Thursday\u2019s tragic incident in the Maldives \u2014 hoping they can reach their remains before the sharks do.<\/p>\n

Only the body of the doomed group\u2019s diving instructor has been found so far \u2014 while a\u00a0Maldivian military rescue diver perished\u00a0<\/a>during the previous search for the other missing divers.<\/p>\n

The crack newly assembled European team, including three top divers from Finland, is set to resume the mission to recover the remaining four bodies from inside the treacherous network of underwater caves Monday.<\/p>\n

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Giorgia Sommacal, 20, was the youngest of the five divers to perish.Giorgia Sommacal \/ Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The team, assembled and dispatched by Divers Alert Network Europe, includes Sami Paakkarinen and Patrik Gronqvist, who previously successfully recovered surviving divers from a 2014 incident in Norway.<\/p>\n

Some of the group also took part in 2018\u2019s successful rescue of a Thai youth soccer team trapped in a cave.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll bring [the victims\u2019 bodies] back. We can\u2019t leave them at the mercy of the sharks. We need experts here,\u201d DAN Europe CEO Laura Marroni\u00a0told Italian newspaper La Stampa<\/a>.<\/p>\n