Two bodies of missing Italians recovered from inside Maldives cave

It is hoped that discovering the bodies will provide clues as to the cause of the accident. The recovery operation has been described as complex because of the depth of the cave and the lack of space and visibility. The entrance to the cave lies at a depth of 47m but the various chambers are at varying depths.The Finnish divers were working with local police and coastguard, and officials said that while the specialist team had brought the two bodies to a depth of 30m, the coastguard divers had taken over the operation from that point.The weather at the time of the dive on Thursday was described as rough and a yellow warning had been issued for passenger boats and fishermen.Four of the divers were part of a team from the University of Genoa, which told the BBC that it did not give approval for any kind of deep-sea dive as part of their scientific research."The requests submitted to the Maldivian authorities... were evidently made outside the scope of the mission authorised by the university," a spokesperson said. The dive was carried out "in a personal capacity", the spokesperson added, and not part of the research.Instagram/University of Genoa/Albatros Top BoatAmong the five who died were Giorgia Sommacal (L), her mother Monica Montefalcone (C) and diving instructor Gianluca BenedettiA Maldivian government spokesperson told the BBC that the team had a permit to dive to a depth of 50m but had not mentioned the cave in their proposal.The team was led by Monica Montefalcone, who was associate professor of ecology at Genoa University, along with research fellow Muriel Oddenino, who were looking at the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity.