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| This aerial photo shows Cable Beach and the town of Broome, Western Australia, June 24, 2014. A 55-year-old man died Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020, after being attacked by a shark off Cable Beach, a popular tourist spot on Australia's Indian Ocean coast. AP |
A man died Sunday after being attacked by a shark in Western Australia, the eighth fatality in the country this year.
Police were called to Cable Beach, a popular tourist spot on Australia's Indian Ocean coast, at about 8:40 a.m. The 55-year-old was pulled from the water with serious injuries and treated by police before paramedics arrived. He died at the scene, police said.
Local media reports said the man was bitten on the upper thigh and hand. The species of shark involved in the attack is not known.
Park rangers immediately closed the beach and a fisheries vessel was assigned to patrol the area.
The victim was the eighth to die in a shark attack in Australia this year, the highest toll since 1929 when nine died. The introduction of shark nets at popular beaches in the 1930s led to a significant fall in fatal attacks.
The most recent previous attack in Western Australia occurred on Oct. 9 ,when a surfer was taken by a shark at Esperance on the state's south coast. Companions saw the man, Andrew Sharpe, dragged from his board. His body wasn't found despite a three-day search but his surfboard and parts of his wetsuit were located.
Broome, near where the latest shark attack took place, is about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north of Western Australia's largest city, Perth. (AP)
