Resident of a small Canadian town fear that the dead blue whale that washed up on their shore last week could be about to explode.

The 25m carcass has swelled to double its size as any food left in the whale’s gut begins to rot and the bacteria produce methane.

The small rural fishing town of Trout River, which sits on the coastal edge of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland are now left with two options to dispose of the whale before it explodes, covering much of the nearby beach and houses in whale guts: They can either bury it, or drag it back out to sea and sink it so that bottom feeders can feast on its remains.

However, both of these options are expensive and prohibitively difficult, as a huge digger would be needed to dig the whale’s grave, which would be difficult to bring in from outside, and a boat big enough to tow the whale would struggle to get close enough to the shore in the first place.

The whale is one of several believed to have died in heavy ice in recent weeks, but now has begun to smell and the town fears that this will impact tourism.

If the whale did explode, this would not be the first time, with a sperm whale recently exploding on the Faroe Islands when prodded by a biologist.