A day before the earthquake in the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, four whales washed ashore on a beach in Japan. There were claims online that this was a precursor phenomenon of the earthquake. However, experts noted that there is insufficient scientific evidence to confirm the correlation.
According to the Asahi Shimbun on the 30th, Japanese police received a report around 6 p.m. the previous day about four whales on the beach in Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, which is part of the greater Tokyo area. The whales, measuring 7 to 8 meters in length, were found to be alive. An expert on marine mammals at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Japan stated that the four whales appeared to be sperm whales, a species often sighted in Tateyama City, but it seemed unprecedented for four to wash up together.
About a day after the whales were discovered, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 struck the Kamchatka Peninsula at approximately 8:25 a.m. on the 30th. As a result, claims spread on various social media that the discovered whales were an omen of the earthquake.
In response, an expert on marine mammals at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Japan said, "Even if there were unusual sound waves from the seabed before the earthquake, it cannot be determined what effect that had on the whales."
A representative from a nonprofit organization investigating the whales that washed ashore also noted that it is common to observe a whale on land about once a day, stating, "There is no evidence to view this as a sign of an earthquake."
A week before the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, around 50 dolphins of a species known as the bottlenose dolphin washed up in Ibaraki Prefecture, south of Fukushima Prefecture. At that time, a university research team concluded that there was no relation to the earthquake.