A Whale of a Time

Thu 31 January 2013

A Whale of a Time

Filed under: #satscene —— Sylvia @ 19:56

On the 26th of January in 2004, a 50-tonne sperm whale exploded on a busy Taiwanese street. Pedestrians, cars and shop-fronts were showered with with blood and organs from the whale which was being transported on the back of a trailer.

The whale had beached itself after being struck by a large shipping vessel and was dead by the time help arrived. It took three large cranes and 50 workers to lift the whale onto the trailer to be transported to the nearby Shi-Tsao Natural Preserve for a post-mortem examination. Sadly, the whale never made it there.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Whale explodes in Taiwanese city

“Because of the natural decomposing process, a lot of gases accumulated, and when the pressure build-up was too great, the whale’s belly exploded.”

However, he said despite the explosion, enough of the whale remained to allow for an examination by marine biologists.

As a helpful note, you really do not want to do an image search on “whale explodes in Taiwan” unless you have a very, very strong stomach. Just, don’t.

Don’t despair, however! These wonderful images taken on the 26 of January in 2013 are quite safe to browse through and enjoy: