German scuba diver found dead was killed by shark

Great White Shark charges in South Africa, taken with a pole camera. 
Great White Shark charges in South Africa, taken with a pole camera.  Credit: Chris Perkins

A 68-year-old Austrian man, who went missing while scuba diving off the coast of eastern South Africa this week, was killed by a shark, sea rescuers said.

The man, who is yet to be identified, was part of a charter that was diving at at the Protea Banks site south of the city of Durban at 1.45 pm on Wednesday afternoon, the National Sea Rescue Institute said.

The man’s fellow divers said the group was surfacing when he disappeared.

"During the search the remains of the body of the man, believed to have been bitten by a shark, were located by crew of a private fishing boat," the institute said.

"The remains of the body were recovered from the water onto a sea rescue craft and brought to shore."

Shark attacks occur at a rate of around six a year along the South African coastline, with most blamed on great white sharks and Zambezi sharks, known as the pitbulls of the ocean for their habit of biting and shaking to cause catastrophic injuries.

In 2014 a 72-year-old Austrian tourist was killed by a shark while swimming at Second Beach in the town of Port St Johns, south of Protea Banks.

The man was the eighth person to be killed at the beach in five years. In 2012, Liya Sibili, 22, died on Christmas Day 2012 after being taken by a shark in waist-deep water.

Only his bathing trunks were recovered despite a three-day search for his body. South Africa’s Natal Sharks Board says only 15 percent of attacks a year are fatal.

Most attacks are on swimmers in warm, shallow waters on beaches in KwaZulu-Natal coast in the east of the country. Protea Banks, about 8km off shore, is a popular site for scuba divers with Zambezi sharks, tiger sharks and occasionally great whites spotted under water.

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