Popular beaches in holiday hotspots in both islands have been forced to close yesterday afternoon after separate shark sightings, prompting evacuations by lifeguards.

Lifeguards at Ōhope near the Top 10 Holiday Park in the Eastern Bay of Plenty evacuated the beach after a shark was spotted in the surf about 4pm.

People could be seen standing on the shoreline looking for the shark before leaving the beach soon after.

Lifeguards took down the flags at Ōhope and blew a whistle to alert swimmers of the shark.

Rotorua mother and daughter Mary and Brittany Eriksen, who are staying at their family bach nearby, had just got out of the water and were drying off when they heard a lifeguard blow a loud whistle.

One of the lifeguards then carried a sign above his head that read “shark” to show swimmers what had been spotted.

“At that moment, dozens of people raced out of the water,” Brittany said.

Rotorua mother and daughter Mary and Brittany Eriksen had just got out of the water and were drying off when they heard a lifeguard blow a loud whistle. Photo / Alanah Eriksen

“It was more exciting than scary with everyone trying to spot the fin. He proved pretty elusive though.”

Meanwhile, in the South Island, Swimsafe has red-flagged Christchurch’s New Brighton Beach today due to a shark sighting.

It comes after holidaymakers were warned not to swim at Whiritoa Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula yesterday after reports of multiple shark sightings.

A spokesman for the Whiritoa Lifeguard Service told the Herald there had been three separate shark sightings close to the shore on Friday and the beach had been closed intermittently.

He said they didn’t get a good look at the sharks, but thought they may have been bronze whalers – considering how shallow the water was they came into – and said they were “on the smaller side”. He didn’t know if the separate sightings were of the same shark.

Surf Life Saving NZ earlier said a shark sighting near the flagged area of Waihī Beach, just down the coast from Whiritoa Beach, forced its temporary closure on Christmas Day.

A bronze whaler shark swimming near Tauranga's Pāpāmoa Beach earlier this year.

Shark scientist Riley Elliott told RNZ earlier this week the risk of shark attacks was pretty low.

Over summer, sharks headed inshore to drop off their pups in nursery habitats, he said.

Those areas were usually warm, calm, shallow and had lots of small fish, and generally happened to be the nice places people liked to swim in.

“But what that does mean is we don our Speedos and we go to the beach and we see sharks.”

The most common shark people would see in the North Island and Upper South Island was the bronze whaler, Elliott said.

Further south, they could encounter the sevengill shark and the great white shark.

-NZ Herald