Beaches closed after Australia shark sightings

SYDNEY ( AFP) — Four beaches on Australia’s east coast were closed yesterday after numerous shark sightings, police said, as authorities patrolled waters off a southern island following a fatal attack on a diver a day earlier.

New South Wales police said the beaches at Ballina — where a bodyboarder was severely injured by a shark earlier this month and a Japanese surfer was killed in February — would be closed for 24 hours.

“About 9: 30 a.m., a large shark was spotted swimming about 50 meters off Angels beach,” police said in a statement, adding that there were other sightings.

“It is believed the presence of baitfish has attracted large sharks to the area.”

Surf Life Saving NSW said aerial, jet ski and boat patrols were being conducted off Ballina, a popular tourist spot about 740 kilometers north of Sydney.

The sightings came a day after a scallop diver, named as Damian Johnson by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and aged in his late 40s, was attacked by a shark off Maria Island in the southern state of Tasmania as his daughter watched.

Johnson was hauled back to the surface but did not survive.

Johnson’s brother- in- law Andrew Paynter said his daughter, who is aged in her 20s, was “doing a remarkable job under... some really really trying circumstances.”

“(Johnson was) just a great bloke, devoted husband, great father, just a great friend to all those who knew him,” Paynter told the ABC.