A second giant shark was spotted swimming by the Spanish coastline just a day after a seven-footer terrified swimmers at a different beach. The shark, described as a tintoera, was seen swimming in the water inside the Ciutadella Port, Menorca, this morning.
In the video, the shark can be seen slowly circling boats moored in the port as people peer over the edge to watch. It comes a day after terrified bathers tried to run to safety through waist-high water as a seven-foot shark neared the shoreline off Aguamarina Beach, south of Alicante, on Thursday. But the other shark, spotted yesterday, was found dead a couple of miles north, prompting fears the one seen today could be injured.
A local weather webpage, which posted footage of the tintorera on its side in the sea by rocks close to a strip of sand where people were sunbathing, said: ‘The seven-foot shark that approached the shoreline has died.’
A seagull was filmed standing on top of the shark as the waves lapped over it at La Caleta Beach in Cabo Roig. Biologist Juan Antonio Pujol told a local paper: ‘Coming across something like this when you’re swimming in the water makes an impression but you should stay calm because they’re not aggressive.
Yesterday, lifeguards blew on their whistles to warn residents and holidaymakers about the shark and urge them to get out of the sea as quickly as possible. One woman, thought to have been an elderly person seen being helped out of the water by Good Samaritans, is said to have suffered a panic attack after realising the shark was beside her.
The incident happened at Aguamarina Beach in Orihuela Costa south of Alicante around 10am Thursday morning. Initial reports pointed to it being a tintorera or blue shark which was about seven-foot long.
Local police were among emergency responders who searched for it without success and it is understood to have swum back out to sea without being seen. The shark sighting coincided with the start of the lifeguard service at the beach. A blue shark was blamed for an attack on a holidaymaker in Elche near Alicante in July 2016.
The 40-year-old victim was rushed to hospital and given stitches to a wound in his hand. First aiders described the bite as ‘large’ and said he had come out of the sea with blood streaming from the injury. In August 2018 tourists fled the sea in panic after a blue shark, among the most common in Spain, appeared off the packed Majorcan beach of Calas de Majorca on the island’s east coast.
In April a near seven-foot shark also believed to be a tintorera was filmed in the surf on the southeast coast of Majorca at a nearby beach called Cala Llombards. The footage of it in shallow water showed it was obviously disorientated.
A Spanish woman watched it as its tell-tale fin appeared above the water’s surface and it headed towards the shoreline in the clear water before nearly beaching on the sand. She could be overheard saying as it was knocked on its side in the swallow water and thrashed its tail around in a bid to get back out to sea: ‘This one is going to end up getting stuck here.
‘We have to get it out of the water, it’s going to stay where it is.’ Its efforts eventually paid off and it was filmed swimming back out to deeper water before disappearing. Last week Russian tourist Vladimir Popov, 23, was filmed being attacked by a tiger shark and dragged underwater off the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Hurghada. His body parts were later recovered from inside the predator’s belly after it was clubbed to death by beachgoers.