SYDNEY: Dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast, including in Sydney, closed on Tuesday after four shark attacks in two days, as heavy rains left waters murky and more likely to attract the animals.
Beaches around Port Macquarie, around 400 km north of Sydney, were shut after a man was bitten while surfing earlier in the day. He remains in hospital in a stable condition, health authorities said. “If you’re thinking about going for a swim, think of going to a local pool because at this stage, we’re advising that beaches are unsafe,” Steven Pearce, the chief executive of Surf Life Saving New South Wales (NSW) told reporters on Tuesday.
“We have such poor water quality that’s really conducive to some bull shark activity.”
The closures come in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere summer, when beaches across Australia are normally packed with locals and tourists.
On Monday, emergency services were called to a beach in Sydney’s Manly after reports a surfer in his 20s had been bitten by a shark. Eyewitness Max White said another surfer had kept the man alive using his board’s leg rope as a makeshift tourniquet to stem the bleeding. — Reuters
