A 15-year-old girl has died after a shark “bit her in half” while she was swimming in the Indian Ocean.

The gruesome attack happened when the French teen was only 16 feet from the shore in northwest Reunion, a French island near Mauritius and Madagascar.

Incredibly, the friend she was with managed to swim to safety to call for help but was too late to save her.

Gina Hoarau, the director of public safety in Saint-Paul, said: “Part of her body was carried away by the shark.”

She added: “The conditions of the attack are surprising. You wouldn’t think that a shark would get this close to the shore.”

Read more at The Sun.