Illustration of a whale.
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Michael S. Nolan / SIPA
The corpses of two whales were found on the same beach in Bangladesh two days apart.
A first whale was stranded on Thursday on Himchhari beach, near the seaside resort of Cox's Bazar.
Two days later, this Saturday morning, a tropical whale carcass was discovered 2 km from where the first cetacean had been found.
"The carcass of the animal found today is at least 50 feet (16 m) long and 10 wide," said the director of the Marine Life Alliance association, based in Cox's Bazar.
“It weighs between 3 and 4 tonnes.
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Two dead whales have washed up on the same stretch of Bangladesh coastline in two days, officials said Saturday, raising suggestions that they were killed by sea pollutionhttps: //t.co/1q48botnys pic.twitter.com/2BLYVhXOT1
- AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 10, 2021
Pollution surely involved
The whales could have been killed in the collision with a boat in the Bay of Bengal or after ingesting plastic waste in the sea. "We believe in the first place that they died after consuming plastic and polluting waste", he said, noting that one of the whales still bore "a mark of injury on the back".
▶ ️ A whale carcass drifted ashore on Bangladesh's resort district of Cox's Bazar, Friday.
Local fishermen say it may have been killed by deep-sea ship propellers, but officials have yet to release a cause of death.
(AFP) pic.twitter.com/OwnYdn9ge0
- The Voice of America (@VOANews) April 10, 2021
The waters of the Bay of Bengal are very polluted, according to Mohammad Shahidul Alam, professor at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Fisheries.
Samples were taken from the two corpses to carry out examinations and confirm the cause of their death.
Two other whales had already stranded on the beaches of Cox's Bazar in 1996 and 2006.
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