A whale slammed into a snorkeling tour boat Wednesday near Cabo San Lucas, killing one and injuring two other tourists, Mexican authorities said.

The Attorney General's Office for Environmental Protection said the two tourists suffered "considerable injuries" when the whale hit the side of the boat Wednesday, according to USA Today.

The office said nine tourists were aboard the snorkeling tour boat. According to the office, the boat was close to the shore when the whale hit the side of the boat. The boat was described as "fragile" and "having inflatable parts."

Photos taken after the whale strike show the approximately 25-foot boat apparently undamaged.

Cabo Adventures, the company that operated the boat, told prosecutors they were returning from a snorkeling trip when they saw a whale. They said the captain of the boat tried to maneuver away from the whale but was unable to do so. Then the whale struck the boat. When contacted by the media by telephone, an employee refused to speak further on the accident.

The Baja State Sur state prosecutor's office said that the collision with the whale caused the victim to be tossed in the water. They say it occurred near the beach resort of Cabo San Lucas.

The 35-year-old victim was pulled back into the boat by a crew member and a passenger. Mexican navy personnel moved her to the shore, and she was taken to a clinic where she died during attempted treatment.

The prosecutors' spokesman, Sergio Villarreal, said the woman died from head trauma. He also said this was the first death in an accident like this that he knew of.

The woman was a 35-year-old from Canada. Her hometown has not been released to protect her identity.

Officials first said it was gray whale. But Jorge Urban, a professor of biology at the Baja California State University who specializes in whales, insisted it was probably a humpback whale.

Urban says incidents like these are not common. He says more often ships will hit whales, and that will leave scars on them.

"This is the first time in 30 years of studying whales that I have heard about an accident like this ... in which passengers are pitched into the sea, and one dies," Urban said.

Normally boats are required to stay a safe distance away from whales in protected areas and whale-watching areas, but those rules are not applied in Cabo San Lucas.