Spectacular rescue in Gold Coast to a beached whale

A big young humpback whale was found beached at Palm Beach, in the Gold Coast, around 6:30PM on Tuesday, and the attempt done to try to free the animal back to the sea on the high tide on Wednesday morning was unsuccessful.

Authorities monitored the whale during the day and tried again at high tide around 4PM, but it wasn't possible to free saving the young whale yet.

The area had been cordoned off and Trevor Long from Sea World urged onlookers to stay clear. "It's very dangerous, this animal is probably around 15 to 20 tonne. You can't really get close to the animal because it could roll, it could lift its tail, so it's a very dangerous situation," he said. "So we'd ask for certainly no one to go down and get close to the animal."

The whale, which experts said it was in good condition, experienced a distressing 36 hours after it washed up on the beach at 6.30PM on Tuesday night and was actually freed Wednesday afternoon but was soon washed onto the shore again. The rescue was delayed because of the night and the lack of light. The rescue operation resumed at sunrise on Thursday, and succeeded when the whale finally swam free and continued its annual migration north to the Great Barrier Reef.

By Santi Ivar