Another shark attack has stirred Maui waters resulting to officials in Hawaii to close several beaches in the area.

A woman in her 30s was attacked by a shark while swimming 30 feet from the Ulua Beach Park shoreline.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources chief in Maui Clarence Yamamoto did not reveal any details about the injuries but told reporters that the victim was able to swim to shore after attacked by a shark. Other reports reveal that the injuries sustained by the victim are on the upper torso.

In response to these recent shark attacks, Maui officials decided to close all beaches in the area particularly Polo Beach Park and its neighboring beaches.

The first attack that happened days prior to the second one involved 19-year-old Kiowa Gatewood. Gatewood was reportedly surfing on White Plains Beach on Sunday afternoon when he saw what seemed like a tiger shark.

"I was sitting on my board, when all of a sudden I saw this shark come out of the water and grabbed my leg," Gatewood told KHNL, a local news agency. "From there, I had this instinct to like, hit it with my left hand and then it let go and turned around and swam away," he added.

Statistics show that sharks kill an average of 10 people a year. However, the Florida Museum of Natural History confirms that humans kill 30 million sharks annually.

After numerous shark attacks in different parts of the world the past few years, researchers the likes of Jose Leonardo Castillo from the National Fishing Institute in Mexico started studying the possibility that sharks are now associating humans with food. While the context of Castillo's study is based on bodies being dumped in bodies of water in Mexico, this is still an alarming piece of information.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says however that if sharks attack, it is often because of mistaken identity.