Tourist dies after losing her leg in shark attack off Canary Islands

A German tourist died after being bitten by a shark on Monday while sailing off Spain's Canary Islands , the coastguard said.

The 30-year-old woman lost a leg in the attack and died of a heart attack later while being transported in a Spanish rescue helicopter, a coastguard spokesman told AFP.

She was sailing in a British catamaran in the Atlantic some 278 nautical miles southwest of the island of Gran Canaria when the shark struck. She was attacked while swimming beside the catamaran, Reuters reported.

Emergency services received an alert at 1255 GMT calling for a medical evacuation and sent a military plane and helicopter after also contacting the Moroccan coastguard.

The woman was taken on board the helicopter in the evening around 1800 GMT and was bound for hospital in the Gran Canaria town of Las Palmas when she died, the spokesman said.

Boat-tracking website vesselfinder.comindicated that the boat, the Dalliance Chichester, had left the port of Las Palmas on September 14.

Shark attacks are rare, with a total of 69 confirmed unprovoked attacks worldwide and 14 fatalities reported last year , according to the International Shark Attack File, which is administered by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the American Elasmobranch Society. The report noted that a "disproportionate" amount of people died from shark bites in Australia last year when compared with other countries, and Australia accounted for about 22% of the world's unprovoked shark attacks in 2023.

The deadly attack comes less than a month after a shark killed a 16-year-old high school student in Jamaica.

In July, a surfer lost his leg after a great white shark attacked him in Australia. The month before that, surfer Tamayo Perry died after sustaining fatal injuries in a shark attack off the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

In January, a young fisherman diving for scallops was killed by a shark off the Pacific coast of Mexico.