HOKOTA: Rescuers were forced to abandon efforts to save around 150 melon-headed whales that were stranded on a beach in Japan, after frantically trying all day to save them.
As darkness fell, local officials in Hokota, about 100km northeast of Tokyo, said they had been able to save only three of the animals that had beached and that the rescue effort had been called off.
The rest of the creatures, a member of the dolphin family usually found in the deep ocean, had either died or were dying, they said.
“It was becoming dark and too dangerous to continue the rescue work at this beach, where we could not bring heavy equipment,” said an unnamed Hokota city official.
“Many people volunteered to rescue them but the whales became very, very weak.”
“Only three of them have been successfully returned to the sea, as far as we can confirm,” he added.
Locals and coastguard teams had battled through the day to save the animals, trying to stop their skin from drying out as they lay on the sand.
Others were carried in slings back towards the ocean.
Television footage showed that several animals from the large pod had been badly cut, and many of them had deep gashes on their skin. — AFP