While kitesurfing this Thursday on the northeast coast of Grande-Terre, in New Caledonia, a 39-year-old man drowned, before being savagely attacked by sharks, the prosecution said from Nouméa.
The law of nature is merciless. This Thursday, June 27, around 2:30 p.m., a 39-year-old man, residing in Poindimié, in New Caledonia, was out kitesurfing on the northeast coast of Grande-Terre with a friend when he fell to the water. He got stuck “in the halyards of his wing,” the Nouméa prosecutor’s office said this Friday, June 28. He was subsequently attacked by sharks.
The thirty-year-old, who was losing consciousness, received the first gestures of help from his friend, before several sharks appeared with disconcerting speed.
The Poindimié firefighters intervened using a boat and found his remains in a pitiful state.
“The examination of the body, carried out at the request of the public prosecutor’s office, concluded that it was a death by drowning, followed by an attack by sharks having torn off the lower limbs,” said the prosecutor, before specifying that a shark bite a length of 21 cm was recorded on the kitesurfer’s body.
In the south of the large island of New Caledonia, in the bays of Noumea, the risk linked to shark attacks has increased significantly.
Of the 10 deaths from shark attacks recorded in 2023 worldwide, one was in New Caledonia in February.
