MIRI (BERNAMA, THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Malaysian villagers and fire fighters helped to push back into the sea a 9.14m-long whale found stranded on a Sarawak beach on Thursday (May 4).

Head of the Miri Fire and Rescue Department Law Poh Kiong said the department received a call from the public at 7.11am about the whale which they found to be alive on the Kuala Sungai Siwak shore in Baram.

"The Miri fire fighters, with the help of villagers, decided to save the mammal," he said.

The crowd managed to push the whale, estimated to weigh 1.5 tonnes, back into the sea at 8.15am and it swam away, Mr Law said.

The seas off Miri are used by whales, sharks and dolphins during their annual migration from the northern hemisphere to the southern oceans off New Zealand and Australia.