Bodies of four missing divers located in the Maldives

A specialist team has located the bodies of four missing Italian scuba divers who died in an accident in underwater caves, Maldives officials and the DAN Europe divers' network has said.

During a three-hour operation, the team of Finnish divers also gathered the information needed to plan the recovery of the bodies, DAN Europe said in a statement.

"This marks an important milestone in an operation that remains technically demanding, emotionally challenging, and operationally complex," the statement added.

The Finnish team arrived on Sunday, after the incident in the Vaavu Atoll, where the Italian divers had been exploring caves at a depth of 50 metres on Thursday.

Authorities are investigatging procedures ahead of the dive, Mohamed Hussain Shareef, chief spokesperson of the President's Office of the Maldives, told Reuters.

The body of a fifth Italian diver was recovered on Friday at a depth of about 60 metres inside a cave structure, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) said last week, adding it assumed the others would also be in the cave which is about 200 feet long.

A MNDF diver taking part in the search died on Saturday from decompression illness, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend the recovery effort which has been taking place in rough weather and sea conditions.