SYDNEY – A man was killed by a shark on Monday off Australia's east coast, not far from the area where a surfer was mauled by a shark a day earlier, police said.
A group of surfers helped pull the victim of Monday's attack out of the water at Shelly Beach in the northern New South Wales town of Ballina, police said. The man was given first aid, but died.
Officials quickly closed beaches in the area.
Ballina is just 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Seven Mile Beach, where 35-year-old surfer Jabez Reitman was attacked by what he described as a 2-to-3-meter (7-to-10-foot) shark on Sunday.
"I just freaked out," Reitman told reporters as he was taken from an ambulance at a hospital on Sunday. "I thought it was a dolphin at first until I started feeling and realized it was pretty significant lacerations."
Reitman said he was surfing off Seven Mile Beach, near the tourist town of Byron Bay, when he was attacked.
"I should've stayed in bed," he said of his decision to go surfing, adding that he was "shocked but in good spirits."
Reitman was later transferred from Byron Bay to Gold Coast University Hospital, which reported his condition as stable.
A 50-year-old swimmer was killed by a shark at Byron Bay in September.
Sharks are common off Australia's beaches, but fatal attacks are rare; the country has averaged fewer than two deadly attacks per year in recent decades.
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