Two women killed in shark attack at hotspot on Red Sea
a Shark has killed two women in a horrific attack at a popular resort along egypt’s Red Sea coast, it emerged yesterday.
the victims had been swimming just 650ft away from one another off the coast of the Sahl Hasheesh area near Hurghada when they were savaged by the mako shark on friday.
a statement by the egyptian ministry did not provide any detail on their identities but one victim has been described as an austrian pensioner.
the 68-year-old, who had been on holiday in the country since June 2, had been using a snorkel in shallow water not far from the beach before she told her egyptian partner: ‘I’ll go back in for a moment.’
footage uploaded online then shows
‘She was in a state of shock’
her desperately trying to swim towards safety. She had been mauled by the shark, which can swim up to 46mph, can be 4.5 metres (14ft 8in) long and exceed 80 stone (508kg).
She died of shock following her catastrophic injuries shortly after being taken to the private nile Hospital, a health official said.
Reports suggested this victim was elisabeth Sauer – who served as a Green councillor from 1998 to 2004 in Kramsach, austria.
a Russian tourist, who filmed the aftermath of the first attack, said: ‘I saw the shark turning and twisting the woman in the water.
‘I didn’t manage to film it, but she was twisted in the water.’
He added he saw the woman ‘fighting off [the shark] with her hands at first’ but the shark ‘bit off her leg, then her hand’.
He said: ‘She was already sitting on the corals. She was in [a state of] shock. She didn’t even scream, didn’t cry, nothing.’
the identity and nationality of the second woman, killed only 650ft away around the same time, is not known. Her body was pulled out of the sea after being located on a reef hours after the first victim was taken to hospital, according to witnesses.
She was believed to have been staying at the adult-only Premier le Reve five-star hotel.
the Russian tourist later posted a new video showing the location of the second fatal attack. using his finger to explain, he said: ‘this is a small lagoon where we saw [the shark] for the first time. the attack I filmed [earlier] was here,’ – he points towards the pier.
‘and the body of the second woman was pulled out approximately here.’
Hundreds of tourists who had seen the attack on the austrian woman said there had been no lifeguards around to help as swimmers fled the sea. On friday, Red Sea governor amr Hanafi ordered the closure of all beaches in the area for three days.
the country’s environment ministry added that a task force was working to ‘identify the scientific causes and circumstances of the attack’ and determine ‘the reasons behind the shark’s behaviour that resulted in the incident’.
the Red Sea is a popular tourist destination where sharks are common but rarely attack people swimming within authorised limits. In 2020, a young ukrainian boy and an egyptian tour guide survived an attack despite losing limbs.
However, in 2018, a Czech tourist was killed by a shark off a Red Sea beach. a similar attack killed a German tourist in 2015.