A six-year-old girl has died after being attacked by piranhas in a river in northern Brazil, following an accident in which her canoe capsized during a storm.
The girl, named by local media as Adrila Muniz, was travelling with her grandmother and four other children on the Maicuru River near the town of Monte Alegre in the state of Para on the afternoon of 27 January. The boat capsized in the storm, and while the grandmother was able to bring the other children back aboard, she could not reach the victim.
Townspeople joined in a search for the girl and found her unresponsive. Family members told local media that she may have drowned shortly after entering the water, and may already have been dead when attacked by the fish. Her body was taken to a hospital morgue in Monte Alegre, where post-mortem photographs showed that virtually all the flesh had been stripped from her legs.
Piranhas are freshwater fish with razor-sharp teeth and typically travel in large shoals for protection from predators. Although attacks on humans are extremely rare, they can be deadly. In 2012, another six-year-old child, Eduardo dos Santos de Sousa, died near the town of Curua, also in Para, after piranhas devoured flesh from his forearm.
