Residents of Manaung rescue a beached whale.
Residents of Manaung rescue a beached whale.
The whale was discovered beached in Manaung township's Kha Ohn Maw Ywar Ma village, according to State Department of Fisheries officer U Nyunt Wai.

More than 22 feet (6 metres) long and 8 feet (2.4m) in girth, with 3-foot (0.9m) pectoral fins and a 3-foot fluke, the whale weighed 2 tonnes. It hit the shore around 6am, U Nyunt Wai said.

"A stranded whale is a strange thing in nature," he said. "The stranding might be related to magnetic fields, as this type of animal goes around seeking the magnetic field."

Villagers and members of the township's Department of Fisheries successfully pushed the whale back into the water and along the canal until it reached a place where it could swim by itself.

Causes of whale strandings include changes to the magnetic wave, changes to water pressure, miscalculation of geography because of a sand flat, following an ill leader of the group, an infection, seeking land out of fear, attacks from hunters, or disruption of sound waves, U Nyunt Wai said.

A 33-foot-long dead whale washed up on Rakhine State's Gwa township beach on January 11, and a 28-foot-long fish was stranded in a different village in Manaung township just weeks later on January 25.

Translation by Emoon