Fears are growing over large, smelly whale corpse, which is plaguing a Canadian town.
Residents in Trout River, Newfoundland, have appealed for help in removing the 25m (81ft) whale beached next to a community boardwalk, expressing fears the carcass could explode.
The dead whale is said to be emitting a powerful stench that is spreading through the town of 600 people.
"This is about the fact that this whale is blowing up on the beach. It has gases trapped inside of it," Trout River’s town clerk, Emily Butler, told the Telegram.
"Until we get some definite answers back, this still remains a situation that we haven’t been given a final solution on."
She added: "If that whale does explode, we don’t know what danger that would be to our infrastructure, the longliner itself, or to people."
A marine biologist almost got taken out by an exploding whale near the Faroe Islands last year.
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW
Poor Bjarni Mikkelsen, a scientist at the National Museum of the Faroe Islands, was given the rather grim task of getting rid of a whale corpse after two died this week near the Faroe Islands.
But little did he expect that it would explode in his face.
Dressed from head to toe in protective clothing, the marine biologist is seen nervously prodding the carcass.
As he punctured the creature's stomach, with a loud bang, the gas trapped inside rips through the 45ft-whale’s corpse, spewing guts and internal organs into the air.
The gut-busting reaction came after a buildup of gases, specifically methane, caused by the putrefaction process.
While these types of “natural” whale explosions aren’t common, they aren’t unprecedented.