Fact Check: Earthquake off Russian coast linked to stranded beluga whales? No, video is from 2023
A video claiming to show beluga whales washed ashore in Kamchatka after a powerful earthquake is going viral.
By M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The video shows beluga whales washed ashore in Kamchatka, Russia, after the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake.
Fact:The claim is false. The video is from 2023 and has no connection to the July 30 earthquake.
Hyderabad: A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 30, prompting tsunami alerts across the Pacific. According to the US Geological Survey, the quake hit about 136 km east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hawaii, and parts of the US West Coast were all placed on tsunami watch, with waves as high as 3 meters predicted in some regions.
Amid this, a video circulating on social media shows a group of beluga whales stranded on a beach, while people appear to be trying to help them. The posts claim the video was shot in Kamchatka after the recent earthquake.
One X user shared the video and wrote, “Five beluga whales washed ashore in Kamchatka just a day before the 8.8 earthquake. Nature gave us a warning, but we failed to listen.” (Archive)
Similar posts can be seen here, here and here. (Archived 1, Archive 2, Archive 3)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is old and unrelated to the July 2025 earthquake in Kamchatka.
A reverse image and keyword search led us to a Newsweek article published on August 15, 2023, titled ‘Video Shows Russian Fishermen Rescuing Beached Beluga Whales.’
The report stated: “In a rare piece of good news, five stranded beluga whales have been rescued from where they were trapped on a beach. The belugas, four adults and a calf, were found stuck on a beach near the mouth of the Tigil River in Russia's Far East, local news outlet Kamchatka-Inform reported. The group of whales was rescued from their predicament by several local fishermen, who poured seawater on the mammals and kept them well fed with fish until the tide came back in.”
The article also embedded the longer version of the viral video, confirming that the footage has been online since August 2023 and was not recorded after the 2025 earthquake.
We also found a YouTube video published by ViralBear on August 18, 2023, titled ‘Heroic fishermen rescue family of five beluga whales stranded in Kamchatka's Tigilsky district.’
According to the video description, the incident occurred on August 14, 2023, and features a rescue operation where local fishermen saved a family of five belugas stranded on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in Kamchatka’s Tigilsky district. The rescue was confirmed by Alexei Kumarkov, Minister of Natural Resources for the region.
The claim falsely links an old incident to a current natural disaster. The claim is false.
