A 17-year-old girl was killed by a shark at a popular tourist beach in Australia on Monday — marking the third fatal shark attack Down Under in less than six weeks.
The Queensland Ambulance Services responded to a “serious shark bite incident” involving the unidentified teen girl at the popular Woorim Beach north of Brisbane around 4:45 p.m. local time, ambulance services said in a post on X.
Paramedics rushed to the scene but couldn’t save the teen, who succumbed to life-threatening upper body injuries 15 minutes later, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Local outlets said the girl was bitten on the arm.
The girl was swimming roughly 100 yards off Bribie Island when the attack occurred, according to the outlet.
The waters near the beach are protected with drumlines, which are barrels anchored to the sea floor with baited hooks to act as a shark-control measure, the outlet said.
Some of the hooked shark species are then euthanized, while others are released elsewhere.
Other recent local shark victims include a 28-year-old man, Lance Appleby, who was wounded by one of the fish while surfing at Granites beach in the state of South Australia on Jan. 2, the Guardian reported.
The man disappeared before rescuers could locate him and was eventually declared dead after a five-day search, the outlet said
Just days before, on Dec. 28, a shark also fatally bit a 40-year-old pastor, Luke Walford, on the neck as he was spearfishing by Queensland’s Keppel Bay Islands National Park, which lies on the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said.
Reports of deadly shark attacks have surged over the past two years in Australia, with five attacks off its coast in 2023, including three that were fatal, CBS News reported.
There have been more than 1,200 shark attacks in Australia since 1791, of which more than 250 (greater than 20%) were fatal, according to a national database.