1 killed in Australian shark attack
PERTH, Australia (AP) — One man was killed and another injured in a shark attack Monday at a popular beach in western Australian, police said.
Scores of witnesses watched as the shark, believed to be a great white up to 13 feet long, attacked about 30 feet off the shore at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach, which was crowded with early morning swimmers.
“I could see this huge shark — it was really huge,” said Kim Gamble, who watched from the balcony of his beachfront cafe as the shark bit off the man’s leg. “There was a whole sea of blood and it was pulling the person.”
One man was pulled from the water by other swimmers but died on the beach, police said. A second was hospitalized with injuries to his lower leg. Neither was immediately identified.
Police immediately evacuated the beach and officials mounted an air and sea search for the shark.
Perth sea rescue authorities said several great white sharks had been reported off the coast near Perth in recent weeks.
The attack was the second by a shark at Cottesloe Beach in the past three years. In October 1997 two men escaped injury when a 16-foot shark bit their surfboard in half off the beach.
It was the third death blamed on great white sharks in Australia in the past two months. In South Australia in September, two surfers were taken from their boards in separate incidents two days apart.
