Humpback whale no longer visible on Baltic Sea sandbank

There has been no official confirmation so far - emergency services and experts were initially not at the water's edge, as a reporter from the German news agency DPA reported.

The humpback whale was discovered on a sandbank on Monday morning. For days, attempts were made to free the 12 to 15 meter long animal. On Tuesday, for example, a rescue attempt with a small suction dredger failed. On Thursday, a dredger was used to excavate a channel.

By the evening, the whale had fought its way through this channel meter by meter. A larger dredger was also finally able to intervene from land after a dam had been raised to bring the heavy equipment within reach.

The animal proved to be more active than in the days before. The helpers also tried to encourage it with noise in the evening - by honking, drumming or shouting. The animal itself also kept making loud growling noises. In the end, it was only a few meters into the deeper water in the evening, said the mayor of Timmendorfer Strand, Sven Partheil-Böhnke, when the operation was called off due to darkness.