Shark attacks woman, child off Australia

A WOMAN and a child were bitten by a shark in the popular Whitsunday Islands near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Thursday in the latest of a string of such attacks, reports and officials said. The Queensland state ambulance service said the pair were rushed to hospital with leg and foot wounds from the attack along a beach on Hamilton Island, but the injuries were not life-threatening. Local media said the victims were a woman and young child playing in the shallow waters of the island’s Catseye Beach. Australia has one of the world’s highest incidences of shark attacks, but fatalities remain rare.