A 30-year-old woman has died near a popular holiday spot after her leg was bitten off by a shark.
The horrific attack took place while she was on a catamaran in international waters 278 miles south-west of Gran Canaria’s airport.
The woman’s name has not been identified but she is from Germany and died in a Spanish Air Force helicopter as she was being evacuated to a hospital in Gran Canaria.
She boarded at 8pm but died at 11pm yesterday after she went into cardiac arrest inside the helicopter.
The shark attack happened at around 4pm on the same day so it is believed she died around seven hours later.
The catamaran sent a Mayday at 3.55pm.
Spanish coastguards also alerted other nearby vessels about the emergency that was happening.
Another vessel ended up approaching the catamaran to give the rescue crew medicine aimed to help the woman.
Local reports suggest Moroccan authorities refused to transfer the injured woman for treatment to Rabat.
The catamaran left the Canaries on September 14 and has been named as the British-flagged Dalliance Chichester.
It is a 17 metre-long, eight metre-wide pleasure craft.
Coastguards in the UK have been informed about the incident from the Spanish coastguards because of the origin of the catamaran.
It is still not yet clear this evening how the attack happened or why.
A shark attack for this area is unusual because there has been no previous documented shark attacks there.
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