A Russian man was killed by a shark attack off a resort on the Red Sea in Egypt | News

The coastline will remain off-limits with swimming, snorkeling and other water sports activities banned through Sunday.

Officials say a Russian man has died after being attacked by a shark off the coast of Egypt’s Red Sea city of Hurghada.

The environment ministry said the man died after being mauled by a tiger shark in the waters near Hurghada on Thursday.

Authorities closed off 74 kilometers (46 miles) of the coastline, and announced it would remain off-limits with swimming, snorkeling and other water sports activities banned through Sunday.

“A tiger shark attack on a beachgoer… led to his death,” the ministry posted on Facebook, without providing further details.

A video circulating online, purportedly of the attack, shows a man thumping into the water before being attacked repeatedly by a shark that circles around him, then dragged down.

The ministry later said it had caught the shark and was examining it in a laboratory to try to determine the causes of the rare attack.

The Russian consulate in Hurghada identified the man as a Russian citizen but did not give his name.

Russian Consul General Viktor Vorobiev told the state-owned Tass news agency that the Egyptian authorities had confirmed to him the death of the Russian citizen, born in 1999.

“The victim was not a tourist, but a permanent resident of Egypt,” Vorobiev told the news agency.

A diver who arrived on the scene immediately after the attack said people rushed to help the victim after a rescue worker from a nearby hotel raised the alarm, but was unable to reach him in time.

History of shark attacks

Egypt’s Red Sea resorts, including Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, are home to some of the country’s most popular beach destinations and are popular with European tourists. Divers are drawn to the steep drop off the coral reefs offshore, which offer rich and colorful marine life.

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Shark attacks are rare in the coastal areas of the Red Sea.

However, in the year 2022, two deadly attacks occur in Hurghada within days, killing an Austrian and a Romanian tourist.

In 2018, a Czech tourist was killed by a shark off the Red Sea beach. A German tourist was similarly murdered in 2015.

In 2010, an unusually large series of five attacks in five days near the tourist hotspot of Sharm el-Sheikh killed a German and injured four other foreign tourists.

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