The first pictures have been released of the Maldives deep-sea cave where five Italian divers died as investigators still try to work out what happened.

The photos were taken by one of three professional divers from Finland called in to recover four bodies trapped inside the underwater caves.

The divers had been exploring the cave in Vaavu Atoll last Thursday when they disappeared in what is believed to be the deadliest diving accident in Maldives’ history.

The body of their diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti was later recovered outside the cave.

Divers brought two other bodies, Monica Montefalcone and Federico Gualtieri to the surface on Tuesday after they were found in a cave 60m deep. Two more, Muriel Oddenino and Giorgia Sommacal, were brought up on Wednesday.

Pictures posted on social media by Divers' Alert Network (DAN) Europe, who were behind the recovery, show the dark cave entrance and how the rescue team worked inside the complex system of caverns.

Natural light could be seen filtering through the entrance before the system descended into darkness.

More photos showed the inner chambers of the cave, where visibility could disappear when the coral sediment was disturbed, making navigation difficult.

The rescue team from Dan Europe, a medical research organisation, found the Italians in a corridor with a dead end inside the cave complex, according to La Repubblica.

The CEO of Dan Europe has suggested the Italian divers may have accidentally taken a turn down the wrong passage as they were trying to exit the caves, from which there “was no way out.”

Laura Marroni explained that a rising sand bank in one of the chambers could look like a wall, potentially creating an ‘illusion’ that sent divers on the wrong path to a dead end instead of the exit.

The divers were said to be using tanks that held approximately 12 litres, which would have given them just 10 minutes to visit the second cave, Ms Marroni estimated.

“Realizing that the path is the wrong one and having little air, perhaps after going back and forth, is terrifying. Then you breathe quickly and the air supply decreases,” she told the Italian news outlet.

The divers have described the cave, at a depth of 60 metres, as “very challenging”.

The bodies of Montefalcone, Sommacal, Gualtieri, and Oddenino will be returned to Italy on Saturday, according to Corriere della Serre.

Their computers and phones were reportedly seized as part of an investigation to understand what happened.