Does a video show five beluga whales that washed ashore in Kamchatka, Russia on July 29, 2025, the day of an 8.8 magnitude earthquake? No, that's not true: On August 13, 2023 a Kamchatka news outlet posted a longer version of this video on YouTube. That video shows the successful effort by Kamchatka fishermen to help the stranded whales until the tide came in.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on July 30, 2025. It opened:
THE ANIMALS WARNED US - AND WE DIDN'T LISTEN
Just yesterday, five beluga whales washed ashore in Kamchatka, Russia, the exact epicenter of today's record-shattering magnitude 8.8 earthquake.
Nature always knows first. This was the warning.
This is how the post, with a 1:10 minute long video clip, appeared on X at the time of writing:
(Source: screenshot of X post by Lead Stories)
This did not happen in 2025. A much earlier copy of the video (pictured below) was posted on YouTube (archived here) on August 13, 2023 by @kamchat100, the channel of the Russian kamchatka info news website.
(Source: screenshot of YouTube by Lead Stories)
The Russian title of the video, translated to English, reads:
Kamchatka Residents Save Beluga Whale Family from Perishing
In the video's transcript, translated by Google, the fishermen discuss what they are doing to help. It reads in part:
We pour water on these poor guys. The tide is coming in soon, I'm sure they'll survive. There are a few hours left -- so we will water.
The final scenes of the 2:17 minute long video show the tide high enough to touch the tails of the whales. The video closes showing a whale fully submerged and swimming. One of the fishermen in a boat feeds the whale a fish.
This incident was covered by pravda.ru (archived here) on August 14, 2023.
