“A 27-year-old surfer was bitten on his upper left arm and on his right leg by a shark of unknown species,” spokesman Craig Lambinon said in a statement.

Fellow surfers pulled him from the water on his board and raised the alarm for others in the water at the Cinsta East beach, he said.

By the time rescue services arrived, the man was already on land. Paramedics determined that he was in stable condition but took him to a private hospital in East London, Lambinon said.

The last fatal shark attack in South Africa was in January 2010, when a Zimbabwean holidaymaker was killed by a four-metre-long (13-foot) Great White shark while swimming at a Cape Town beach.