Original article (in Croatian) was published on 6/8/2025; Author: Anja Vladisavljević
The footage was recorded in 2023, when local fishermen in Kamchatka rescued beached beluga whales and helped return them to the sea.
In the digital age, few things travel faster than dramatic footage of natural disasters or tragic events involving people and animals. Recently, a video has circulated on social media purporting to show white whales stranded on the Russian coast in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake. This emotional “double blow” – the raw force of an earthquake combined with the distressing sight of beached whales – quickly gained traction online.
“Four whales washed ashore in Japan after a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit Kamchatka! 🌍💥
Footage emerged on the X platform, reportedly from the coast of Hirasuna in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, where massive ocean creatures are seen lying motionless…
At the same time, beluga whales were spotted stranded and disoriented on the Russian coast. 🐋❗”
– reads a Facebook post published on 30 July 2025 (archived here).
The Video Was Filmed in 2023
The one-minute video shows several beluga whales stranded on a shore, while people walk along the edge of the sea, attempting to assess the situation and help the animals. Using Google Lens to reverse-search video stills, we found that the same footage has been circulating across various platforms and is now being falsely associated with the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands on 30 July 2025.
However, one match led us to a YouTube video posted in 2023. The footage is nearly identical, clearly showing the same elements: two men, an inflatable boat, four adult whales, and one calf. It was uploaded to the ViralBear channel on 18 August 2023, under the title:
“Heroic Fishermen Save a Family of Five Beluga Whales Stranded in Kamchatka’s Tigil District.”
“On 14 August 2023, in the scenic Tigil District of Kamchatka, Russia, a remarkable story of human compassion unfolded as five beluga whales found themselves in danger. According to regional Natural Resources Minister Alexey Kumarkov, local fishermen rallied together to save the stranded whales.
Members of the family-run fishing collective Sokol – Andrey Korolyov, Vladimir Kochelyaevsky, Sergey Umkev, and Ashot Ustyan – discovered four adult whales and a calf stranded on the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk. They spent hours keeping the whales hydrated until the tide came in and allowed the animals to return safely to the sea”, reads the video description.
The story was also covered by several Russian news outlets in August 2023 (1, 2, 3). The Russian state news agency TASS reported that Minister Kumarkov confirmed the authenticity of the video circulating on social media and that the whales had indeed been rescued, with direct communication from the fishermen involved.
Whales Did Strand in Japan, But This Video Doesn’t Show That
While it’s true that last week a powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Kamchatka, triggering tsunami alerts as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, this video is not connected to that event.
The earthquake was followed by an eruption of the peninsula’s most active volcano and a 4-meter-high tsunami. This was one of the strongest in recent decades; it damaged buildings and injured several people in Russia’s Far East, though no major destruction was reported.
Some news outlets (1, 2), including local ones, did report on whale strandings in Japan that occurred around the same time. According to Japan Forward, on the evening of 29 July, four whales were found beached on Heisaura Beach in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture. Authorities said the cause was unknown and made no official link to the tsunami or earthquake that followed. Some experts noted that similar strandings have occurred prior to large seismic events in the past.
In conclusion, the video circulating online does not show whales affected by the 2025 Kamchatka earthquake. It was filmed in August 2023, when local fishermen in Kamchatka successfully rescued a group of stranded beluga whales and returned them to the sea. The footage is unrelated to the recent natural disaster and is being misrepresented in social media posts.
