{"id":279479,"date":"2025-11-12T09:53:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/279479\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T09:53:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:53:28","slug":"today-in-history-november-12-dramatic-overestimation-in-how-much-dynamite-is-needed-to-blow-up-a-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/279479\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – November 12: Dramatic overestimation in how much dynamite is needed to blow up a whale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eager to clear a popular beach in the US of a beached sperm whale, local authorities hatched upon a dramatic solution on November 12, 1970.<\/p>\n

The 14m sperm whale was too heavy and in too difficult a spot to drag back into the ocean or away to higher ground to be diassembled.<\/p>\n

So the decision was made to dynamite the dead animal.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe whale was too big to be easily moved. (KATU)<\/p>\n

The Oregon Highway Division, the law enforcement body with jurisdiction over the beach, packed 450kg of dynamite underneath the whale.<\/p>\n

The thinking was that by blowing it to smithereens, it would create bite-size pieces for eager seagulls and hungry crabs.<\/p>\n

The Highway Patrol ignored warnings from a local military veteran that 450kg was way too much dynamite.<\/p>\n

Instead he argued that about 4kg would be enough.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe blast was far more powerful than expected. (KATU)<\/p>\n

But they didn’t take his advice, and at 3.45pm, the dynamite was detonated.<\/p>\n

The explosion was enormous, and those who had come to watch the spectacle half a kilometre away were instead bombarded with chunks of airborne blubber.<\/p>\n

“The humour of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere,” journalist Paul Linnman said in his television report.<\/p>\n

Cars were completely destroyed, including one which had been bought just days earlier by an explosives expert.<\/p>\n

And after the blast, there were still massive parts of the whale that remained intact.<\/p>\n

\"FallingFalling blubber destroyed parked cars up to 500m away. (KATU)<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the seabirds that it was hoped would eat the remains instead were frightened off by the blast.<\/p>\n

The story of the exploding whale entered local folklore in Oregon, but entered the wider zeitgeist decades later.<\/p>\n

Video of the exploding whale became one of the first viral videos after it was uploaded in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

It is now the recommended policy of the Oregon State Parks Department to bury all whale carcasses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eager to clear a popular beach in the US of a beached sperm whale, local authorities hatched upon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-279479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}