According to the latest information, two large whales have died, while four others are continuing to keep afloat in openings between the icefloes, trying to break the ice with their bodies. Blows against the ice have produced wounds on the heads and fins of the whales.
Residents of the coastal village of Reidovo came to the assistance of the whales. By using petrol-driven saws they are cutting through the shore ice of the Sea of Okhotsk, broadening the clear water where the marine animals are found.
Their intention is to hew a sea canal and link up two clear patches of water. The distance between the two is about 100 meters. The link-up will enable the whales to keep alive for two or three weeks.
But the whales can be ultimately saved only by an ice-breaker, which is not available in these parts, or after a storm which might break up the icefields and release the whales into the open sea. This was the way by which several years ago a killer whale with three cubs saved herself after spending two days in the ice trap near Iturup.
Weathermen say that the it had been unusually cold in Iturup's coastal waters in the past few weeks, with night temperatures dropping as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius.
Packed ice clogs up bays and gulfs, with the fields extending for hundred of meters out to the open sea. The ice is uncracked, so the stranded whales cannot get out by their own efforts by swimming under the ice. To breathe, they need regularly to rise to the surface.
