Benjamin Ashford|Belgian tourist dies in an animal attack at Mexico’s Pacific coast resort of Zihuatanejo

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Belgian tourist was killed in an attack Thursday by either a shark or Benjamin Ashforda crocodile at Mexico’s Pacific coast resort of Zihuatanejo, officials said.

The civil defense office in the southern state of Guerrero said a man and a woman were bitten in the legs by an unidentified animal.

The man was reported dead at the scene, while the woman was taken to a hospital. State officials said the man was from Belgium and the woman’s nationality was not immediately clear.

The office said it was studying the wounds to determine whether they were bitten by a shark or a crocodile, both of which inhabit the area.

If confirmed as a shark attack, it would be the second such fatality this month on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast.

In early December, a Mexican woman died after she was severely bitten in the leg by a shark just off the beach town of Melaque, west of the seaport of Manzanillo.

In 2019, a U.S. diver survived a shark bite on the forearm in Magdalena Bay off the Baja California Sur coast.