January 10 (RIA Novosti) It was a scene reminiscent of the 2012 major motion picture “Big Miracle,” which told the real life story of whales trapped under ice in 1988, and a small town trying frantically, but ill-equipped to free them.
In the Hollywood version, a massive Soviet icebreaker helped save the whales.
In this real life scenario, which played out on Thursday in the remote northeastern Canadian village of Inukjuak, the eleven killer whales that were trapped with only a small area of open water for them to surface and get air, were able to free themselves, according to the Inukjuak mayor’s office.
Early Thursday morning, scouts sent to check on the trapped whales discovered a passage stretching some 25 miles (40 kilometers) through the Hudson Bay leaving a path to open water. The ice hole where the mammals had been trapped was empty, according to media reports.
"It was mother nature that helped them," Inukjuak Mayor Petah Inukpuk told NBC News. “When there is a new moon, the water current is activated it could have helped … completely trap them but in this case it caused an open passage out to the open water," he said.
The killer whales, also known as Orcas, were first discovered trapped under ice in the Hudson Bay on Tuesday, according to media reports. Residents in the secluded Inuit village watched helplessly as the whales, which can range in size from 16 to 26 feet (5 to 7 meters), struggled to breathe out of a hole roughly the size of a pickup truck, trying to survive.
The community requested assistance from the Canadian government, but the request was denied, officials said, because help was too far away. That was until the whales apparently helped themselves.
