News Desk
MALE — Italian newspaper la Repubblica is reporting that investigators are examining whether the Venturi effect, a sudden suction force created by fast-moving water through a narrow passage, may have played a role in the deaths of five Italian divers inside an underwater cave in Vaavu Atoll earlier this month.
The hypothesis, according to the Repubblica report published on 19 May, emerged from early assessments of the cave’s internal structure and the way water moves through its narrowest points. The paper says the specific geometry of the cave may have generated a powerful inward pull that dragged divers into a confined chamber from which they could not escape. It stresses this remains one of several working theories and that Maldivian authorities have not issued a final technical explanation.
The Venturi effect occurs when water accelerates through a constricted opening, causing a pressure drop that creates a suction force. In underwater cave systems, this can produce sudden currents capable of pulling divers into tight spaces with little or no warning. The Repubblica report suggests such a current may have formed at the moment the divers entered the cave’s narrowing section.
Significantly, the Italian report frames the cave’s natural dynamics, rather than equipment failure or diver error, as the focus of this line of inquiry. That framing matters. In the days after the tragedy, commentary online and in some media attributed blame to the divers for entering a site beyond recreational limits. The Venturi hypothesis, if borne out by the investigation, would point instead to conditions that even experienced technical divers may not have been able to anticipate or resist.
Maldivian authorities have not yet released a detailed reconstruction of what happened inside the cave. The investigation is continuing, with assessments of the cave’s internal layout, water flow patterns and the conditions present on the day of the dive still under way.
The deaths drew immediate and extensive coverage in Italy. Monica Montefalcone, Giorgia Sommacal, Muriel Oddenino and Federico Gualtieri were all connected to the University of Genoa’s marine science community. Gianluca Benedetti, the dive instructor and boat operations manager aboard the MV Duke of York, had lived in the Maldives since 2017. MNDF Staff Sergeant Mohamed Mahdi died during the subsequent search operation, adding a Maldivian loss to an already grave incident.
The Repubblica report is among the first to highlight a specific physical mechanism for what happened inside the cave, shifting the conversation from who was responsible to what the cave itself may have done.
Source: la Repubblica, 19 May 2026.
