One person has been reported killed in South Carolina after an alligator carried out an attack in Sun City, local media has said.
The fatal incident took place on Monday at around 11.15am in the Sun City gated community for retirees, not far from Okatie, South Carolina, Local 5 reported.
Police were called to the scene with reports of an alligator that seemed to be “guarding” a body near a pond, where it was thought to remain on Monday.
IslandPacket reported that work to recover the body was underway and that an investigation is being carried out by the the local sheriff’s office in Beaufort.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office are also a part of the investigation, reports said.
The exact details of the location of the attack were not released and the victim cannot be identified until the body is retrieved.
Fatal alligator attacks are rare in the US, with the Center for Disease and Prevention reporting only 10 deaths from alligators in the south eastern US between 1999 to 2019, ABC News reported in June following a fatal alligator attack in South Carolina.
Before June’s attack, the last tragedy to occur in the state was in May 2020, when a 58-year-old woman was reported killed.
Further updates on the Sun City attack are expexcted.
