A large part of the South African coastline has been closed off after a 15-meter whale washed ashore following an attack by great white sharks.

The whale was pulled from the waves after its catches attracted large numbers of great white sharks to the shoreline at Muizenberg Beach near Cape Town on Sunday.

Authorities have since removed the southern right whale from the beach, but closed a stretch of coastline from Muizenberg to Monwabisi “as a precaution.”

As the bulldozers turned the whale over, you can see sections of its body where the sharks had feasted.

Washed ashore: The rescue team carries the dead beast to the beach using a harness

From head to tail, a member of the council’s salvage team records the length of the stranded whale carcasses.

The body of the whale is prepared before being loaded onto a truck.

Disaster response teams moved quickly to pull the animal out of the water and onto a flatbed truck, no easy task for a species of whale that can weigh up to 47 tons.

Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, spokesman for Cape Town’s center for disaster risk management, said: “The decision was made to start the recovery operation immediately due to increased shark activity off the beaches along off the coast of Fagge Bay.

The warning did not stop the curious from flocking to the site.

Workers try to move the carcasses of stranded whales on Muizenberg beach