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South Africa Shark Attack

January 19, 2012 by · Comments Off on South Africa Shark Attack 

South Africa Shark Attack, Exactly a year ago, 16-year-old South African, Zama Ndamase, died after a shark bit him while he was surfing off the same Port St. Johns’ beach.

Exactly a year ago, 16-year-old South African, Zama Ndamase, died after a shark bit him while he was surfing off the same Port St. Johns’ beach. Photographer: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images

A 25-year-old man died after being bitten by a shark while swimming off Second Beach at Port St. Johns in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, the world’s first deadly attack of 2012.

The man sustained “multiple traumatic lacerations” to his torso, arms and legs, John Costello, station commander for the National Sea Rescue Institute in Port St. Johns, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement without identifying the victim. The man, who was swimming in waist-deep water with a crowd of bathers, was declared dead at a local clinic “after all efforts to save him had been exhausted.”

Fourteen people died after being bitten by sharks last year, the highest number of people since 2000, according to data from Princeton, New Jersey-based Shark Research Institute Inc.’s Global Shark Attack File. Of the attacks, 12 took place in the Indian Ocean, four of which were in Australia and three in South Africa, the data shows. Exactly a year ago, 16-year-old South African, Zama Ndamase, died after a shark bit him while surfing off the same Port St. Johns’ beach.

KwaZulu-Natal’s Sharks Board is “carrying out studies in an effort to try to determine why there has been such a frequent spate of shark incidents in Port St. Johns,” Costello said in the statement. The sea water was very warm and there was low visibility off Second Beach yesterday, he said. The victim’s name is not yet being released, Craig Lambinon, the National Sea Rescue Institute’s spokesman, said by phone today.

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