UK Edition
Dozens of weary volunteers have formed a human chain to prevent a pod of stranded whales that washed up off a New Zealand coast from beaching again, as a fresh group became stranded.
Hours after volunteers managed to refloat hundreds of the whales, another pod of 240 swam aground.
This brought the total of stranded pilot whales up to 640 over two days.
Some 335 of the whales beached on Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island are dead, 220 remain stranded, and 100 are back at sea.
Friday's event was the third-largest whale stranding in history, and New Zealand has one of the highest rates of whale stranding in the world.
Farewell Spit is known locally as a "whale trap" and has been the site of previous mass strandings.
Volunteers were devastated that a new group had become stranded after coming from across the country to help the first pod, many of whom were already dead.
Cheree Morrison, a journalist who visited the whales on Friday, told The Washington Post: "It was just red and pink skies and just whales as far as you could see. It was really haunting.
“Your first instinct was to run to them and help in any way possible."
It is clear the second pod is a fresh set of whales, according to Andrew Lamason, the Department of Conservation Golden Bay operations manager.
This is because they tagged all the refloated whales from the first pod, and none of the new whales was tagged.
Helpers plan to return on Sunday, to help as many healthy whales as they can, braving the threat of sharks and stingrays.
According to Mr Lamason, around 20 of the new whales have already had to be euthanised because they were in too poor condition to save.
Rescuers were hopeful as they had managed to refloat 100 whales. The conditions helped; they had crystal clear waters on their side, and dozens of volunteers formed a human chain to keep the whales afloat.
Mr Lamason indicated the plans were to tether the carcasses to stakes or a boat in the shallow tidal waters and let them decompose.