A 15-year-old girl has died after a shark tore her in two
while she was swimming off a beach on the French
island of Reunion.
The victim is understood to have been just three to five
metres from the shore at the bay of Saint-Paul, northwest of the island, when
she was attacked at around 2.30pm local time.
"Part of her body was carried away by the shark,"
said Gina Hoarau, director of public safety in Saint-Paul.
"The conditions of the attack are surprising. You
wouldn't think that a shark would get this close to the shore," she added.
The teenager, who lives in mainland France with her mother,
was on holiday visiting her father who works at a yacht club in the area.
She was snorkelling in an unsupervised area where bathing is
forbidden due to high shark numbers, officials said.
A friend who was with her at the time of the attack managed
swim back to shore and emergency services including lifeguards, firefighters
and a police helicopter were called to the scene.
It is the second deadly shark attack this year off the
French island, situated east of Madagascar, and brings the total of
shark-related deaths there since 2011 to five.
But it is the first time in at least three decades that a
swimmer, rather than a surfer, was the victim.
Local authorities this month renewed safety warnings after
an increase in shark numbers.
A mayor and French politician, Thierry Robert, last year
described a marine reserve near the bay of Saint-Paul set up six years ago to
safeguard coral reefs as "a shark's larder".
There has been little shark fishing off the island since
2009 because of a toxin currently found in their flesh that causes food
poisoning.
Locals claim tiger and bull shark populations have
multiplied as a result.
In May, a 36-year-old French man on his honeymoon was killed
off the popular beach of Brisants de Saint-Gilles on the west of the island
while surfing.
A spate of shark attacks last year off Reunion Island
prompted France to hire a team of professional fishermen to kill around 20 of
them but Paris has refused to mount a more widespread cull.
Skynews
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