A shark attack at Little Bay Beach in Sydney, Australia, has left one swimmer dead. Eyewitnesses described the shark as a 4.5-metre great white.
The deadly attack is the first of its kind in the city since 1963. But it’s Australia’s fourth unprovoked shark-related fatality since 2021.
Beach visitors alerted first responders on February 16, just after 4:35 pm local time.
“This person had suffered catastrophic injuries as a result of the attack, and there was nothing paramedics could do when we arrived on scene,” a spokeswoman for the New South Wales Ambulance told AP.
The shark attack occurred at Sydney’s Little Bay beach on Feb. 16, 2022. Photo: Cushla Monk
Footage of the incident
Non-graphic footage of the incident (read: gore blurred out) has since surfaced, showing that it happened just a few metres from shore.
“We heard a yell and then turned around,” local Kris Linto told Nine News TV. “It looked like a car just landed in the water, a big splash, then the shark was chomping at the body and there was blood everywhere.”
New South Wales police officers and marine response teams sectioned off the site. Human remains were recovered at around 6:00 pm. The victim’s identity has not yet been released.
Little Bay beach will remain closed to the public while authorities attend to the scene.
Worldwide, human deaths from shark attacks are markedly rare. The International Shark Attack File (ISAF) catalogs each incident in a comprehensive database. ISAF research showed Australia led the world with three unprovoked shark-related deaths in 2021.
New Caledonia, about 1,500km off the east Australian coast, followed with two. The United States, Brazil, New Zealand, and South Africa each had a single unprovoked fatal shark attack. There were a total of 11.
