Burmese media reported that on February 18, villagers found a whale shark carcass about 40 feet long on the seashore of Jingle Village, Mathi Hin Township, Shwe Dangyan Township, Bo Seng City, Ayeyarwady Province. The cause of death of the whale shark is not yet known.
According to local villagers, the whale shark's abdomen had burst open, presumably caused by a collision with a reef before it died. Whale sharks are one of the largest species of fish in the world, typically growing to over 60 feet and are among the non-dangerous shark species.
It is worth mentioning that whale sharks produce a lot of gas from their decaying abdomen a few days after their death, and sometimes the phenomenon of ** occurs. In fact, on the seashore of Jingle Village, there was a record of a whale shark stranding and dying in 2020.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, whale shark populations have declined by more than 50 in the past 75 years, and as a result, whale sharks are listed as endangered globally.
As recently as November 15, 2023, a whale shark about 17 feet long stranded and died on the beach of Hi Nguyen village in Hainggyikyun sub-town of Ayeyarwady province. This spate of whale shark deaths has raised concerns about the survival of this endangered species.
When a whale falls, all things are born. "In the ocean, the death of a whale can evolve into another form of rebirth. Before a whale falls, it may be given another role by nature, that is, a "biobomb" ...... that may explode at any time
In fact, the occurrence of whale bursts is inextricably related to the special body structure of whales. As we all know, whales are actually deep-sea animals, and in addition to their very large size, in order to live in the deep sea normally, they need to resist the strong water pressure of the deep sea.
This requires that the whale's body must have enough air pressure to resist the external water pressure. And because some whales eat a lot of food before they die, these things decay in their stomachs, producing a large amount of gas-like gases, including methane, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, etc.
When these whales die, their bodies are filled with these gases, which quickly expand and rise to the surface. With the increase of gas in the body, the decay rate of other organs in the body will become faster and faster, which will directly lead to the production of more gas. Sometimes, even in less than a day, the whale's body will rapidly expand into a "leather ball", and if it continues to expand like this, the so-called whale explosion phenomenon will occur.
In theory, the power of the shock wave generated by 5L hydrogen and oxygen ** is equivalent to the power of a grenade, and a whale with a body length of more than 20 meters, in the event of a whale explosion, will accumulate at least more than 50 cubic meters of hydrogen and oxygen in the body, which is enough to 50,000L when converted into liters, and this is equivalent to the power of the shock wave generated by 10,000 grenades**!
Of course, this is the power of the whale burst when it encounters an open flame, but even if it does not encounter an open flame, the power of the whale burst cannot be underestimated, and the power of the whale explosion here is more manifested in the "gas pollution", to put it bluntly, this is equivalent to a huge biochemical bomb, the gas produced is not only foul smell, but also contains highly toxic like gas, and excessive inhalation of these gases will even have the risk of gas poisoning!
Although the whale explosion is a biochemical bomb created by nature, the power is far beyond our imagination, but in real life, there are very few cases of whale explosion witnessed by human beings.