After serious shark attack: German tourist dies on Gran Canaria

Madrid (AFP/dpa/imü). A German tourist has died in a shark attack off the Spanish Canary Islands. As the coast guard announced on Tuesday, the 30-year-old lost a leg in the shark attack and succumbed to her injuries in the rescue helicopter on Monday evening.

The attack occurred when the German woman was travelling on a British catamaran. Shark attacks are extremely rare in this area. A spokesman for the coast guard told the AFP news agency that the accident occurred when the German tourist was travelling on the British catamaran “Dalliance Chichester” around 500 kilometres from Gran Canaria.

According to the shipping website “vesselfinder.com”, the 17-meter-long “Dalliance Chichester” left the port of Las Palmas on Saturday. The authorities were reportedly notified at 2:55 p.m. that a “medical evacuation” was necessary.

30-year-old dies on long journey to hospital

Citing the Spanish maritime rescue service, “Atlántico Hoy” reported that the official authorities had initially notified the relevant authorities in nearby Morocco. However, they refused to send help. The Spanish Air Force was therefore called in, and it immediately mobilized a rescue helicopter.

At around 8 p.m., the seriously injured German woman was taken on board the helicopter to be taken to a hospital in the Canary Islands capital of Las Palmas. On the way, however, the 30-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest.

Attacks by sharks on humans are unusual in this area of ​​the Atlantic Ocean south of the Canary Islands, wrote “Atlántico Hoy”. Since records began in the 16th century, only seven have been counted, it said. It remained unclear which species of shark was responsible for the attack and where exactly the German woman came from.

Shark sightings off Mallorca

According to a study by the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File database, “unprovoked” shark attacks were expected worldwide in 2023. According to the study, 69 attacks occurred last year without any apparent reason; in 2022, the number was 63.

In 2018, for example, a terminally ill blue shark got lost in a bay in Mallorca and triggered a swimming ban that lasted for hours. The incident occurred in Cala Domingos in the east of the island. The animal was in such a bad condition that it died in the evening, the Mallorcan emergency services reported on Twitter. Marine biologists from the Mallorca Aquarium who were called to the scene could only confirm its death.

Read also: After shark alarm in Mallorca: Animal caught and put down

After three shark sightings that terrified bathers off the southwest coast of Mallorca on a weekend in June 2017, the Spanish coast guard caught and euthanized one of the animals. The blue shark, which was around one and a half meters long, was captured on Sunday shortly after the third sighting off the coast of Can Pastilla, around ten kilometers east of the capital Palma, media reported, citing the authorities.