A WOMAN snorkelling while on holiday has been eaten alive by enormous tiger shark, officials have said.
Kristi Allen, 60, posted pictures of herself learning to surf just days before she was killed in the ocean off Hawaii.
She was on holiday with her husband Blake, who reported her missing in the ocean on December 8.
Along with other witnesses, he said that a large tiger shark had been seen in the water and the creature was feeding on something in a pool of red water.
Kristi was a massage therapist and life coach who lived with her husband in Bellingham, Washington.
In a heartbreaking last public Facebook post, she told friends how much she was looking forward to her holiday.
“Following dreams! I have wanted to learn to surf for years. I am committed to create a life I love in big and small ways.”
A 40-hour air and sea search involving the US Coast Guard, the Maui Fire Department and ocean rescue teams was called off December 9.
Only a snorkel set and part of a bathing suit but not her body has been recovered.
Department of Land and Natural Resources spokesman Dan Dennison explained what happened when the couple were snorkelling.
“He and his wife were not snorkelling right next to one another and he could only see her from time to time,” he said.
“As the shark continued to circle him he continued looking for his wife, popping his head out of the water and scanning the surface.”
Blake spotted “something in the distance and then the shark came back, and he could see something red around the shark's gills.”
“At the time, he said people on the beach began yelling at him to get out of the water because a shark was feeding in the area.”
A witness was trying to warn the couple “when he saw the shark's large mouth continuing to feed on something in the middle of the red cloud in the water.”
“He continued yelling for the man to get out of the water but no longer was seeing the woman.”
A 65-year-old man was mauled to death by a shark in Hawaii back in 2019.
The unnamed victim was said to have been bitten while visiting the island of Maui while on holiday from California.
It comes after mum was fatally savaged by a great white shark while paddling in waist deep water just metres from her horrified family earlier this year.
Kimon Bisogno, 39, was taking a weekend away with the "love-of-her-life" Diego Milesi, 40, and her daughter Luna, 5, on the sun-kissed beach in South Africa.
She went into the water for an early morning dip and was said to be only waist deep when the shark – estimated to be about 13ft – attacked through a wave.
Witnesses said the sea around Kimon “turned red” and fellow swimmers fled the water screaming.
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