It was a funeral like no other – around 5,000-plus people in attendance, a pyre stretching almost 46-feet in length and over 25 litres of gasoline.
This was the scene for the last rites of the blue whale, which died 16 hours after it beached itself on the Revdanda beach of Raigad district, last week.
When the authorities first tried to bury the behemoth in the barren land near the coast, high tide coupled with heavy downpour eroded the soil cover, exposing the rotting carcass in the open.
“The foul stench enveloped almost the entire beach, including several coastal villages. It was unbearable, the smell of a rotting monstrous fish. Several villagers called the Collector’s office seeking permission to burn the carcass, which was approved,” local fisherman Deva Patil said.
Soon, two JCBs unearthed the carcass and lined it in a pyre-pit, dug on the beach, which was lined with firewood and flowers. The 20-tonne whale was then covered with an extra layer of firewood soaked in gasoline. Local police officers along with senior locals of the Revdanda lit the pyre on fire, biding their last adieu to the giant porpoise, which had drawn the attention of international media on the small fishing village along the western coastline of Maharashtra.
Photo Credit: Rajendra Patil
“Some deep sea fishing vessels have been spotting whales in these waters for several years. However, it was for the first time that a whale beached itself on the shores here and died,” Collector (Raigad) Sheetal Ugale said.
In 2012, a similar incident had happened along the Dapoli beach in Ratnagiri district when a carcass of a 39-foot-long Humpback Whale washed ashore, much to the shock of locals, who set the remains on fire two days after braving the foul stench.
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