HOBART, Australia (AP) – A woman watched her father being mauled to death by a large shark on Saturday while the pair were diving off the Australian island state of Tasmania, police said.
The adult woman had returned to their boat with scallops that the pair had collected then became concerned that her father, in his late 40s, had not surfaced after her, Inspector David Wiss told reporters in the state capital of Hobart.
“His daughter became worried and went down and checked on her father,” Wiss said. “She saw a very large shark. She saw her father being attacked by the shark.”
The attack happened off the east coast near where a 4 1/2-meter-long (15-foot-long) great white shark was seen on Friday, government ranger Peter Lingard told The Examiner newspaper.
The last fatal shark attack off the Australian coast occurred in February, when Japanese tourist Tadashi Nakahara, 41, lost both his legs to a great white shark 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) long while surfing at Ballina, 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) north of the scene of Saturday’s attack.