People are desperately trying to save a pod of 12 sperm whales washed up on a beach in Indonesia.
At least two of the animals are hurt, while all of them risk dying if they are out of the deep water for too long.
Volunteers have been tying rope around the whales to try and haul them back out to the sea.
‘It is best to wait until high tide, but we are concerned they might die,’ Sapto Prabowo from the Natural Resource Conservation Agency said.
The whales washed up together in Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra.
Fishermen are doing their best to help officials save the huge marine creatures.
Photos circulated on social media showed dozens of volunteers wading on to the reef and tying ropes around the whales, each of which was several meters long and flopping its huge fins in the shallow water.
An adult sperm whale, among the biggest mammals on earth, can grow up to 12 metres and can weigh up to 57 tonnes.
Though unusual, whale beachings have been seen in other parts of Indonesia, a vast archipelago of over 17,000 islands.
In 2016, a group of 29 pilot whales were briefly trapped in a mangrove swamp off the eastern coast of Java, but managed to free themselves or were helped back out to sea by fishermen.
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