Four whales appear stranded in Japan

Four whales washed up on Heisaura Beach in Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, at around 5:00 a.m. local time (8:00 p.m. GMT) on Wednesday, hours before Japanese authorities issued a tsunami warning following an 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.

A man who went out to check the wave height before going surfing saw the four whales on the shore and recorded a video in which several whales can be seen moving their fins , according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

"I'd only seen one beached whale before, but this is the first time I've seen four," the man told the local media.

Furthermore, in recent hours a video has been circulating on social media, especially on X, in which several fishermen help five beluga whales stranded on the coast of Kamchatka, supposedly due to the change in tides.

However, the images do not correspond to recent events, since they were recorded in August 2023 and not this Tuesday, before the earthquake that caused a tsunami on that Russian peninsula , where the waves have reached between three and four meters in height.

In Japan, the first tsunami waves, about 30 centimeters high, reached the city of Hanasaki , in Nemuro, at 10:30 (1:30 GMT), while tsunamis of similar height were observed in the towns of Hamanaka, Kushiro port and Ako.

Waves of up to 60 centimeters in height have been recorded so far in Kuji (Iwate Prefecture) and Hamanaka (Hokkaido Prefecture).

Authorities warned of the risk of continued tsunamis of greater height and are maintaining alerts along virtually the entire Pacific coast of Japan, as several hours can pass from the arrival of the first waves until the peak height of this phenomenon is recorded.