Drones have been deployed and a helicopter to monitor the waters around a popular Sydney beach after a surfer was killed by a great white shark, authorities have said.
Emergency services responded to reports that a man – named by Australian media as Mercury Psillakis – suffered critical injuries at Long Reef Beach on Saturday morning.
Authorities said that the man was brought to shore but died at the scene.
Speaking to Sky News Australia, witness Mark Morgenthal said he saw the attack and heard a man scream, “I don’t want to get bitten, I don’t want to get bitten, don’t bite me”.
On Sunday, a New South Wales regional department spokesperson said officials now believe a great white shark, between around 3.4m and 3.6m in length, was “likely responsible for the mauling”.
The spokesperson added that the shark net at the nearby Dee Why Beach was around 500m away from its volunteer lifeguard club. It’s understood that the incident occurred some 300m north of the club.
Both of the Sydney beaches remained closed as of Sunday evening.
The spokesperson also said that Surf Life Saving NSW, the state’s water rescue organisation, had deployed drones and a helicopter to search the area for the shark.
New South Wales Police Superintendent John Duncan said at a news conference on Saturday that the man “lost a number of limbs” in the attack.
He added that officers “understand [the man] leaves behind a wife and a young daughter… and obviously tomorrow being Father’s Day is particularly critical and particularly tragic”.
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Shark attacks are very rare, with Saturday’s incident widely thought to be the first in New South Wales this year.
The last time a person in Sydney was killed in a shark attack was in February 2022 – the city’s first fatal shark attack since 1963.
It also marks the fourth fatal shark attack across Australia this year, according to data from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.
A surfer was killed by a shark in shallow water on a remote beach in Western Australia in March.
Australia ranked behind only the US in the number of unprovoked shark bites on humans in 2024, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File.
