Don't go into the water, Seychelles tells tourists after shark kills Briton

The Seychelles has not had a shark attack in coastal waters for nearly 50 years, according to a police spokesman

Ian Redmond and Gemma Houghton on their wedding day

The bride of a man killed by a shark on their honeymoon paid tribute last night to her "brave, witty and intelligent" husband.

Gemma Redmond, 27, was sunbathing when she heard her husband's screams for help. Witnesses spoke of how she went into a state of shock and denial as he was brought to shore with terrible injuries.

The couple had been married for just 10 days and were honeymooning on the Indian Ocean archipelago's second largest island, Praslin, when Ian Redmond, 30, went for a swim off Anse Lazio beach around 5pm on Tuesday.

He was snorkelling when he was repeatedly attacked, just a fortnight after another tourist was killed in the area. Two men in a catamaran rescued him but the shark had bitten off an arm and inflicted fatal injuries to his legs, chest and stomach.

A French doctor on holiday tried to keep Mr Redmond alive until he was airlifted to hospital but he had lost too much blood to be saved.

Last night Mrs Redmond said: "He was always calm and collected, strong and brave, witty and intelligent, handsome and caring, a remarkable individual who will be deeply and sorely missed. We are privileged and proud to have shared our lives with him."

Last night officials in the Seychelles closed beaches in the area and said international experts had been brought in to track what they called a "rogue shark".

On 1 August, a French teacher, Nicolas Virolle, 36, was killed by a shark while swimming near the same spot. Some locals blamed fish waste thrown from boats anchored nearby.

Yesterday a police spokesman, Jean Toussaint, said: "The first incident two weeks ago, it was a freak incident in the sense that no attacks had been reported in or around the coastal areas since something close to 50 years back. It was a one-off incident. But then there was a second attack in two weeks and it changed the whole complexion of things."

The minister for home affairs and environment, Joel Morgan, held an emergency meeting in the capital, Victoria, while the director for tourism, Alain St Ange, was keen to stress: "We are taking this very seriously. If there is a rogue shark out there we will try to catch it. We have requested shark experts from South Africa."

The British high commissioner, Matthew Forbes, was with the bride yesterday as both sets of parents were said to be travelling out to be with her.