The metropolitan region of Recife, in the northeast of Brazil, which has registered three shark attacks on people in the last two weeks, began a series of actions on Saturday to prevent this type of incident with sharks.
The actions complement the work of the Regional Shark Incident Monitoring Committee (CEMIT, for its acronym in Portuguese), which this week received resources of two million reais (about 400,000 dollars).
This Saturday began 24 expeditions to capture and mark the animals in the vicinity of the Suape seaport, which provide for the application of thirty acoustic receivers to specify in more detail the movement of sharks on the beaches.
The tourist beach of Boa Viagem, in Recife, and the neighboring Piedade, in Jaboatão dos Guararapes and the most critical point of the attacks, began a campaign to sensitize the population, who a week after two attacks continued to enter the sea in areas the dangerous.
Lifeguards, metropolitan police officers and firefighters intensified their guard, and street vendors and food stall workers were also instructed to join the campaign, according to a statement released by the Recife City Hall.
The most recent attack occurred last Monday on Piedade beach when a young woman was bitten in various parts of her body by a shark and part of one of her arms was amputated.
The attack occurred less than 500 meters from the one recorded on Sunday, when a 14-year-old boy was bitten and his leg also had to be amputated.
With these two attacks, the number of people injured by shark bites in the Recife metropolitan region in the last two weeks rises to three.
The first attack occurred on February 20, in the neighboring municipality of Olinda, when a shark attacked a surfer, who survived the animal’s bites.
CEMIT noted that 36 kilometers of beaches located between the municipalities of Olinda and Jaboatão dos Guararapes, passing through Recife, the regional capital, were declared in "critical situation" and with "risk of new attacks".
In total, the state of Pernambuco – of which Recife is its capital – has recorded 77 shark attacks since 1992, ten of them in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, located some 550 kilometers from the mainland coast.