Thursday, July 10, 2025

Young woman dies after shark attack in Melaque, Jalisco

A 26-year-old woman died Saturday after she was attacked by a shark while swimming at a beach in southern Jalisco.

María Fernanda Martínez Jiménez was swimming with her 5-year-old daughter at a coastal aquatic park in Melaque when she was bitten on her upper leg. The attack occurred at around 11 a.m.

The 26-year-old victim studied marine biology. (@kirschner1 / X)

According to local Civil Protection chief Rafael Araiza, Martínez was trying to lift her daughter onto a floating play platform 25 meters from the beach when the shark attacked. The young girl was not harmed.

Civil Protection authorities in Cihuatlán, the municipality where Melaque is located, said in a Facebook post that its personnel rushed to the beach after they received news of the attack.

But Martínez, who lived in a nearby town and reportedly worked at a local hotel, had already died due to blood loss.

Civil Protection personnel who spoke with the Milenio newspaper said that the woman’s leg was completely severed. Authorities didn’t say what type of shark attacked Martínez, and it was unclear whether anyone actually saw it.

Shark warning for some Jalisco beaches
The local government urged caution to swimmers in the area. (Civil Protection La Huerta/Facebook)

There was initially some conjecture that a crocodile caused the fatal injury.

Beaches in Melaque and the nearby town of Barra de Navidad were closed after the attack. The municipal government of La Huerta, which neighbors Cihuatlán, warned of the presence of a shark off the coast of southern Jalisco and advised citizens to “take precautions” at local beaches.

The Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur, a University of Guadalajara campus where Martínez studied marine biology, expressed its condolences in a post on social media.

Shark attacks are quite rare in Mexico, but not unheard of. A United States tourist was bitten on the leg in 2019 while he was swimming at a beach in Troncones, Guerrero, while a U.S. diver was bitten on the arm in Magdalena Bay off the Baja California Sur coast in another non-fatal attack the same year.

A 37-year-old scuba diver died in 2018 after he was attacked by what is believed to have been a shark in the waters off Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.

With reports from Milenio, López-Dóriga DigitalInfobae and AP

3 COMMENTS

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A small plane flies over the ocean

How the Mexican security minister’s slip of the tongue rankled Salvadoran President Bukele

0
President Bukele took exception after García Harfuch's identified a drug-smuggling plane as coming from El Salvador.
gold bars

Highway robbery near Guadalajara nets 6 million pesos worth of gold and silver

0
Such open-road heists have risen in frequency recently and could pose a threat to potential investors otherwise attracted by nearshoring opportunities.
Security chief Omar García Harfuch, Attorney General Gertz and other Mexian officials sit on a stage in front of a banner reading "National Strategy against Extortion" in spanish

Authorities launch national strategy against extortion to tackle a pernicious and widespread crime

1
The strategy contemplates new laws that would force states to investigate the crime, even when victims are too afraid to make an official report.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity