Swimmer killed in shark attack off popular Australian beach

A swimmer has died following a shark attack at a beach in Western Australia on Friday.

Witnesses reported seeing blood in the water as a police boat and helicopter responded to the incident at Sorrento Beach in Perth 's northern suburbs.

WA Police confirmed the male swimmer had died as a result of the attack to Australia’s ABC News. No further deaths were provided.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) also confirmed it was investigating the reported shark incident.

“My friend said, ‘Jac, I think there’s been a shark attack,’ and I looked out to the ocean, and I could see a pool of blood,” beach walker Jacqui Rapaic told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Local Ryan Rowe reached the beach soon afterwards and said he was told by an onlooker “someone had been bitten by a shark.”

“I couldn’t believe there was that much blood (that had) come out of a human body,” Rowe told The West Australian newspaper.

Authorities closed the beach to swimmers.

On Monday, a surfer sustained a serious leg wound in a separate shark attack near Geraldton, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Perth.

There have been four confirmed fatal shark attacks in Australia this year.

Three spearfishing divers were killed by sharks off the Australian coast in four weeks over May and June. In January, a 12-year-old boy died in a hospital days after he was mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour.

Australia has averaged between two and three fatal shark attacks a year since 2000, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database, a partnership of the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Flinders University and the New South Wales state government.

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