This story is almost too disgusting to visualize. But if you really try, you can almost feel yourself on the street getting splattered with rotting sperm whale innards, blood and slime:

A dead sperm whale being transported through Tainan City on its way to a research station suddenly exploded yesterday, splattering cars and shops with blood and guts.

Certified by authorities as the largest beached whale on record in Taiwan, the 17-meter 50-ton carcass was being transported by a flat-bed trailer-truck to a special research location after National Cheng Kung University officials and security guards refused to allow the whale on campus.

….

Local news reports showed a number of people who had gathered to take photographs of the whale before it exploded in Tainan City, as well as residents and shop owners following the explosion. Many were wearing gauze-masks and trying to clean up the spilled blood and the entrails with brushes and brooms.

“What a stinking mess! This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful,” said one resident.

The news also showed one section of the street along with several parked automobiles and pedestrian walkways covered in red with copious amounts of splattered whale blood.

Lying on the trailer-truck was the dead whale – underbelly exposed with a large elongated tear where the biological gaseous blowout took place. Besides the shocking red bloody mess, large piles of whale intestines and guts were strewn along the road, leaving an unpleasant and ghastly scene for startled residents.

God, that really is gross.

UPDATE: Photos available here. (Thanks to Mr. Brown for pointing me to the photo.)