CAIRO: A shark incident that killed two tourists on the beaches of the Egyptian city of Hurghada has worried visitors, with a hotel sector official sending out reassurances and a diving body asking its members to follow guidance and safety instructions.
The first victim was a 68-year-old Austrian woman who lost an arm and a leg due to a shark attack yet managed to swim to shore to seek help. The second was a Romanian tourist found dead hours after the first attack.
Egypt's Ministry of Environment issued a statement expressing its regret over the incident and offering its deepest condolences to the families of the two victims.
The head of the Egyptian Hotel Establishments Chamber’s Steering Committee, Alaa Aqel, said: “What is certain so far is that the attack was from a shark, but its size and nature are not clear, and therefore a committee of specialists has been formed to study the situation and gather all the details of the incident, and we will continue to close the beach until it is confirmed that it is completely free of any predatory fish.”
He said this type of attack only occurred once every 10 years or more and that nobody could be accused of negligence because, at the time of the attack, no matter how trained the lifeguards were they would “always be afraid of entering the water” when the attack was happening.
The previous shark attack in the same area was in 2020 when a young Ukrainian boy lost his arm and an Egyptian tour guide lost his leg.
In 2018, the remains of a Czech tourist's body were found on a beach in Marsa Alam, near Hurghada, and an official confirmed that he had decided to swim in an area where there were sharks.
In 2015, a German tourist in his fifties was killed by a shark while he was swimming during a cruise in the tourist city of Qusayr.
In late 2010, a 70-year-old German tourist was killed and four Russian tourists were seriously injured in three shark attacks in Sharm El-Sheikh.
On Sunday, the Chamber of Diving and Marine Activities called on its members to follow the guidance and safety instructions it had previously prepared on sharks and adhere to the generally accepted safety and security procedures from authorities on diving and snorkeling activities.
It urged its members to avoid practices that might attract sharks or any other fish or endanger tourists' lives, such as swimming away from designated paths.
It warned snorkelers to check weather conditions and the tide and told them to avoid disposing waste at diving sites.
It also appealed to members to consider reporting fishing violations.
