The equipment that was used in the operation regarding the deaths of the Italian divers after they had gone on cave diving near V. Alimathaa has been retrieved, with the evidence required for the investigation having been handed over to the police, as was said by the Divers Alert Network (DAN) Europe.

As per a statement released by DAN Europe yesterday, they completed the final dive of the operation yesterday.

The statement reads that as the weather, wind speeds, waters and currents have worsened compared to the last few days, they had experienced difficulties, with them experiencing an increase in decompression complexity yesterday as well.

Due to said reasons, there was a one hour and 30 minute delay for their scheduled dive, but they conducted their efforts for about 50 minutes in the cave and had successfully completed a three-hour dive, as was written in the statement.

According to DAN, the main purpose of yesterday's dive was to conduct a clean-up of the cave. These include the temporary guide lines that were affixed during the recovery phase, operational references and the equipment that was used, along with the recovery of items that were in the cave that may be of use to the investigation.

Under best practices of such operations, DAN stated that their efforts also focused on minimizing damage to the environment and to ensure any materials used in the operation were not left behind and cleaned up.

"All recovered material, including equipment belonging to victims, rescuers, and previous operational teams, were handed over to the Maldives Police and formally seized as part of the ongoing investigation," as was written in the statement.

The Italian government has begun a criminal investigation into the case.

According to DAN, the diving operations took place as per technical and cave diving procedures. They also stated that they assigned recovery, safety support and documentation roles to each team member, with closed-circuit re-breathers, DPV's and redundant systems having been used for extended use inside the cave.

DAN expressed their gratitude to Maldives, foreign institutions, individuals and operational teams for helping them in conducting a successful operation.

DAN Europe's CEO Laura Marroni told Italy's la Repubblica news organization during an interview she gave yesterday that the five Italian divers died due to them panicking after they had entered a part of the cave that had dead-ends at three sections.

According to Marroni, the bodies were located atop the third section of the cave, located atop a narrow path leading to the first section of the cave from the second section.

Marroni theorized that the divers went into a panic after they saw that there was no way out of the second section, with the divers proceeding into the third section of the cave which is a dead-end.