This week has been particularly tragic for French divers, with one going missing in a cave in France and another going missing at a French research station on the coast of Antarctica.
A French Polar Institute diver went missing during a dive below the ice in Antarctica off the Dumon d’Urville research station in Adelie Land on January 13th.
Safety protocols had been followed during the dive, but when the diver didn’t reappear, an investigation got underway to try to figure out what happened, according to the Institute:
“The French Polar Institute and the administration of the French Southern & Antarctic Lands [TAAF] join in with the grief of the family of the missing diver, loved ones and all the teams mobilised on site.”
The day before back in France, a search had begun for a diver who went missing in the Font-Estramar cave system — also known as Salses Spring — in the southeastern part of the country. Local fire department cave divers called off the search the following day due to the dangers the cave system posed.
The cave system has claimed the lives of at least nine divers since the mid-1950s, most of them in the past 18 years.
Wile the cave entrance is on privately-owned land and can only be accessed with the landowner’s permission, it’s not known whether the diver was allowed to actually dive there.
