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"Upon seeing whales, we try to avoid them, but we often cannot due to the fast speed of the ships."

The more frequent appearance of whales in the Korean Strait, where passenger liners regularly shuttle between South Korea and Japan, has threatened the operation of the ships.

In the afternoon of April 12, the 267-ton Kobee 5, a passenger ferry heading from Fukuoka, Japan, collided with what was most likely a whale 35 kilometers from Busan port. A 75-year-old Korean woman died of a cerebral hemorrhage after the accident, and 27 were injured, with many of them hospitalized. Witnesses said that after the accident, the surrounding sea became red with the blood of what was most likely a whale.

Passengers were taken ashore by Navy ships, and the vessel was towed into port by a maritime police tugboat. The ship had been traveling at the normal speed of 75 kilometers per hour at the time of the collision.

There have been seven such collisions between high-speed ferry boats and what appear to have been whales on this route since 2004, most of which have happened from March to April. Mink whales and porpoises in the West and South seas return to the East Sea via the Korean Strait from March to June.

According to Kim Jang-geun, an official of the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI), "Since commercial whaling was banned in 1986, the number of mink whales has sharply increased around the Korean Strait, and large whales have been witnessed more frequently in the past few years. The number of accidents involving whales and high-speed ferry boats will inevitably rise."

However, there is no practical way to stop such collisions. Some preventative measures involve the use of soundwaves or special floating material designed to deter the whales from entering in a collision course with the boats, but they have not proven effective.

Diving behavior unique to whales makes it hard to prevent their collisions with boats. As whales come out of the water when oxygen in their body is nearly drained, they cannot prevent surfacing, even if they detect approaching boats. Smaller whales alternate from surfacing every 3-4 and 17-18 minutes, while larger whales can stay underwater longer, such as the sperm whale, which does not need to surface for periods of up to 80 minutes.

In addition, the maximum swimming speed of small whales is 35 kilometers an hour, and 10 kilometers an hour for large whales, so they cannot avoid high-speed ferry boats, which travel at 70-80 kilometers an hour.

A total of 1.2 million passengers made the ferry voyage between Busan and ports in Japan last year.

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