Rescuers are racing against time to free a whale stranded in shallow waters off the north German coast.
The 32ft humpback whale became stuck off the Timmendorfer Strand beach on the Baltic Sea coastline of the Schleswig-Holstein region.
Rescue efforts, which began on Monday afternoon using police boats, inflatable boats and firefighter drones, have so far proved unsuccessful.
The animal is still alive and has been seen breathing, making sounds and occasionally lifting its head, Carsten Mannheimer of the Sea Shepherd marine conservation group told the German news agency dpa.
On Tuesday, experts tried to find a way to get the mammal off the ground after the high tide around midnight proved to be insufficient for the animal to swim free, according to the agency.
Rescuers managed to turn the whale so its head was pointing towards deeper water, hoping it could find its own way back there, but the animal then returned back to its previous position.
Boats from the coastguard and the fire department passed by, creating large waves in the hope of freeing the animal – but also without success.
Rescuers have also used an excavator to try to suck sand from the bottom of the bay and create a trench in front of the whale, but the sand was too compact to be moved. They ordered more powerful machinery, which is being put to use today.
Rescuers are unwilling to try to pull the animal, which weighs several tons, out to deeper water for fear of injuring it, experts said.
Sven Biertumpfel, of Sea Shepherd, told NDR its condition was deteriorating by the hour and “if the whale can’t get off the beach, it’s a death sentence”.
Experts assume that the whale is a young male, as males, unlike females, tend to migrate. It also seems to be the same whale that has been spotted several times in the port of Wismar in eastern Germany in recent weeks.
It was not immediately clear why the whale got stranded, but rescuers found parts of a fishing net wrapped around its body, which they managed to cut off.
Stefan Stauch, who had come with his wife from the nearby village of Scharbeutz after hearing the whale’s sounds during the night, said: “Poor thing. I hope he can still be saved.
“We had hoped that the rising tide during the night would free him, but that didn’t work out.”