Miami, Aug 21 (EFE).– A 10-year-old girl is recovering in hospital after having one leg bitten by a shark while she was playing in the water a few yards (meters) offshore at a beach in Jacksonville, on the northeast coast of Florida, local media reported.

The incident occurred last Wednesday when the girl was with her mom in the water close to the shore, and was attacked by an approximately 3-foot-long (1-meter-long) shark that bit her right leg below the knee, TV channel News4Jax said.

The child was taken as an emergency to Wolfson Children’s Hospital where the wound required 90 stitches.

This was the second shark attack on the same beach, The first took place last June, when a woman was attacked by a dogfish shark while swimming out to sea.

Also last June, a 10-year-old boy was attacked by a shark that bit his calf in the water off Daytona Beach on Florida’s northeast coast, though in that case the injuries were not serious.

The worst shark attacks in the United States this summer occurred at a beach in North Carolina, when two teenagers each lost an arm in two separate attacks.

One of them, a 13-year-old girl, was attacked while swimming at an Oak Island beach and, an hour and a half later, a 16-year-old boy suffered a similar attack.

The girl had to undergo the amputation of the arm below the elbow, while in the case of the boy, below the shoulder.

The state of Florida leads the country in the number of shark attacks along its coasts with 28, or 54 percent of the total number recorded in the United States, according to data of the International Shark Attack File, with Volusia County on the east coast the area with the greatest number with 10, followed by Broward and Palm Beach Counties. EFE