A huge dead whale has washed up at the Himchhari point of Ramu on Cox's Bazar sea beach. It was carried in on the tide and stranded on the sand at around 1pm on Friday (9 April).

On hearing the news, officials of the district administration, the Department of Environment, police and the Forest Department went to the spot, along with political leaders and thousands of curious people. The administration tried to pull the whale up the shore so that the afternoon tide would not carry it away again.

A veterinary surgeon came to the scene to carry out a post-mortem to establish the cause of death. Those involved said an effort would be made to preserve the whale's organs after the post-mortem.

Abdul Mabud, chairman of Khuniapalong union parishad (UP) in Ramu, said the whale washed in on the tide at the eastern part of Barachhara at Himchhari, a tourist spot in his union. It was stranded on the sand at around 1pm, at low tide. Fishermen said the whale may weigh about three tonnes. It is about 45 feet long and 10 feet wide. Parts of its body are rotting and floating away in the water, and it is giving off a stench. Ramu UNO Pranay Chakma, Additional Deputy Commissioner Amin Al Parvez, Additional Superintendent of Police Mamun Al Islam and other officials went to the scene.

Samir Kumar Saha, range officer of the Sadar range of the Cox's Bazar South Forest Division, said forest staff and managers of the Himchhari tourist spot went to the scene, led by Divisional Forest Officer (DFO-South) Humayun Kabir, after hearing that a huge sea creature had washed up on Himchhari beach. Fisheries officials led by the Cox's Bazar district fisheries officer, along with the district administration and police, also arrived. Samples have been collected from the dead whale, and after the post-mortem its body will be buried in coordination with the district administration.

He said the whale is thought to have died several days earlier; what killed it may be known after the post-mortem. From 4pm until 6pm on Friday, efforts continued to keep the carcass from being washed away again by the tide. The post-mortem would begin once the tide went out and the body settled on the sand, and the veterinary surgeon of the Ramu upazila livestock department and a wildlife veterinary surgeon were waiting at the spot.

Cox's Bazar district fisheries officer SM Khalequzzaman said whales of this species live in the Bay of Bengal and are seen especially to the south-west of the Sundarbans. The whale may have drifted to the Cox's Bazar coast after dying.

Cox's Bazar Additional Deputy Commissioner Md Amin Al Parvez said gatherings on the beach are banned because of coronavirus, but thousands of curious people came to the spot on hearing that a dead whale had washed ashore.

Cox's Bazar Mayor Mujibur Rahman, general secretary of the Cox's Bazar district Awami League, said: "I have heard that a whale's bones and organs have various medicinal properties. So the district administration has been asked to preserve the dead whale's bones and the necessary organs."

According to the Department of Environment in Cox's Bazar, records show huge dead whales washing up in the same way at Inani beach in Ukhiya in 1991 and at Himchhari beach in 1996 and 2008. During the 2020 lockdown, dolphins also washed up on the beach, several of which had been killed. Now, within a year, a huge dead whale has washed ashore again, which the department called a matter of concern.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.