The Orient Beach shark attack on Tuesday, 20 October 2026 killed a 65-year-old woman swimming with an open-water group in KuGompo City, formerly East London, in the Eastern Cape.
According to SA People, the woman was swimming with the East London Open Water Swimmers Association when she signalled that she was in distress shortly after 08:00. Two friends reached her first and brought her ashore with help from her son, an Olympian, while the rest of the group swam towards them.
What happened in the Orient Beach shark attack?
The swimmers were in clean water of about 16°C for their regular morning session off the beachfront. Mike Louw, a friend who was swimming with the group, described what the swimmers found when they reached her:
“…she had been bitten by a shark and she was in a very bad way,” Louw said.
She wore a magnetic shark deterrent band and had severe injuries to her right arm and thigh, likely from a single bite. A medic in the swimming group gave emergency care on the beach, but the woman died at the scene, and police moved her body to State Forensic Pathology Services.
A local community group said in a social media post that other swimmers saw a shark’s tail and fin, and that the woman had severe injuries to the right side of her arm and leg. Some reports withheld her name until her relatives had been told.
Beach closures after the Orient Beach shark attack
Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality closed Orient Beach and Eastern Beach until further notice and told the public to stay out of the water at both. It also issued warnings for other beaches along the coast, urged beachgoers to exercise extreme caution and said it would share more information as it became available. In its notice, the municipality said:
“It has been confirmed that a shark attack occurred at Orient Beach this morning, and this resulted in a tragic incident,” Buffalo City Metro said.
Shark attacks in South Africa: the wider picture
The University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File recorded 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide in 2025, up from 47 in 2024. An unprovoked bite is one where the animal attacks a living person in its natural habitat without being provoked. Nine of the 2025 bites were fatal, and one of those deaths was in South Africa.
In 2025, kiteboarder Graham Howes went missing while kitesurfing at Bloubergstrand in Cape Town, and investigators linked his death to a collision with a whale.
In 2024, a US tourist’s remains were found in a shark caught off East Timor after she disappeared while diving off Indonesia.
Researchers link encounters with sharks to growing coastal populations, greater use of the sea and shifts in where sharks and their prey are found. Police have opened an inquest docket into the death, and the species of shark involved has not been identified.
Sources
- SA People, Janine Lochrenberg's last moments in fatal Eastern Cape shark attack
- CP24, Shark kills swimmer off South Africa's southeast coast
- Algoa FM, Beaches closed following shark attack in KuGompo City
- PE Express, Orient and Eastern beaches closed after fatal shark attack in KuGompo City
- Swisher Post, Graham Howes: Death of kiteboarder linked to whale attack
- Swisher Post, Shark attack Indonesia: Tourists warned to be careful at these beaches
