A seven-foot shark washed up on a popular Spanish tourist beach with blood dripping from its teeth.

Shocked beachgoers attempted to push the 200kg predator back into the sea but could not save its life.

It washed up on the Playa del Rihuete beach in Puerto de Mazarron, which is 70 miles south of Brit tourist hotspot Alicante in southern Spain, at 10pm on Monday night after getting into trouble in shallow waters near the shore.

The shark was removed from the beach by town council workers on Tuesday and taken to a rubbish dump for disposal.

The creature was initially believed to be either a blue shark or a great white shark but is now thought to be a mako shark after a sample was tested by a vet.

A shark matching its description had been spotted on Sunday five miles to the east in waters off the beach town of La Azohia.

Witnesses said the shark appeared to be “disoriented” as it swam.

The mako shark species is classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and can grow up to 13 ft long and 570kg in weight.

“Across the regions, the Shortfin Mako was estimated to be declining in all oceans, other than the south Pacific where it is increasing,” it said in a 2019 report.

It is native to tropical waters across the world, from the Caribbean and the Atlantic to the Indian and Pacific oceans.