Another Shark Attack in Egypt Closes Beaches

Egyptian authorities called in an international team of marine biologists after a shark killed a German tourist yesterday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the Tourism Ministry said.

The killing was the fourth shark attack in the resort within a week and the only fatality. Authorities closed beaches for a second time and banned tourists from swimming and snorkelling.

"We are concerned," Tourism Ministry spokeswoman Omayma El-Husseini said by telephone in Cairo. "Any incident that threatens the safety of tourists is a cause for concern and the proof is that beaches have been closed."

Eighty per cent of tourists who visit Egypt spend time on the eastern coastline seeking sun, sand and diving, El-Husseini said.

Tourism accounts for 13 per cent of jobs in the country. In 2011, Egypt aims to attract more than 16 million tourists, generating more than $14 billion in revenue, minister Zoheir Garranah said in an interview in October.

Egypt invited four international shark experts to "assess and advise on the best course of action" after the attacks.

The biologists traveling to Egypt include George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History; Marie Levine, head of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey; and Ralph Collier of the Shark Research Committee of Chatsworth, California, the diving chamber said. A fourth, Erich Ritter, a shark behavioural expert, is advising from his research centre in the US.

Most areas in Sharm El-Sheikh will be open for experienced divers with at least 50 logged dives, the diving chamber said in its statement.

The government doesn't expect the ban on swimming and snorkelling to last more than three days, South Sinai Govenor Abdel-Fadeel Shousha said today in a live interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.