A swimmer has been bitten to death by a great white shark off the coast of the Australian city of Sydney. According to eyewitnesses, it was a shark of about 4.5 meters.
“This person suffered fatal injuries as a result of the attack. There was nothing the emergency services could do,” a representative of the New South Wales State Ambulance Service told Reuters news agency. Human remains were found in the water. The swimmer’s identity is unknown.
It is the first fatal shark attack off Sydney since 1963.
‘Heard a scream’
Eyewitness Kris Linto told a local news station that the swimmer was attacked “vertically” from below by the shark. Linto: “We heard a scream and immediately turned around. It looked like a car had crashed into the water.”
A fisherman saw the attack from a rock and said the scene lasted quite a while as the shark wouldn’t stop attacking. “It was horrible.” After the attack, police closed off the beach and searched for the shark.
Chance of attack is small
According to a Florida museum that records all shark attacks worldwide keeps track, Australia had the most deaths from shark attacks last year with three deaths. A total of 11 people were killed by shark attacks last year.
The museum emphasizes in these figures that the chance that someone will be attacked by a shark is extremely small and that the number of deaths from shark attacks has decreased structurally in recent decades.
Sharks usually seem to err when attacking humans. For example, they mistake surfers, who are often active in areas where sharks also swim, for sea lions.
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