Video: The whale's body suddenly exploded

The body of a whale suddenly exploded on the Faroe Island coast, north Atlantic, when a local marine biologist was pecking its stomach.

The explosion occurred when Bjarni Mikkelsen pecked at the fish to get the skeleton at the request of the National Museum on the Faroe Islands, Metro said yesterday. The amount of gas accumulated in the animal's body is thought to be the cause of the explosion.

The whale died of being trapped in a shallow water near the Faroe Island, then its corpse drifted to a coast. When the whale dies about two days, the gas will accumulate in the abdomen. However, an explosion is what few people think of.

The same incident happened in Taiwan in January 2004 when biologists moved a whale weighing 50 tons.

Faroe Islands is 300km north of Scotland. It is known for collective whale hunts called Grindadrap. This is a culture of indigenous people but it faces condemnation of the international community.