World Scene: Mexico

Shark kills surfer at beach

A shark killed an American tourist surfing in western Mexico, police said on Tuesday, the second fatal attack along North America's Pacific coast in four days.

A shark bit 24-year-old San Francisco resident Adrian Ruiz in the leg on Monday, opening a 38-cm wound from his hip to his knee and exposing his femur.

Ruiz, who was surfing near the beach town of Troncones, 35 km north of the Ixtapa holiday resort, was pulled to the beach by a friend. He was rushed in a bystander's vehicle to the military naval hospital, where he died soon after from blood loss.

On Friday, a 66-year-old man was attacked and killed by a shark in the ocean near San Diego in the United States, the first person to die in a shark encounter off Southern California in nearly 50 years.

(China Daily 05/01/2008 page6)