Fishermen and local authorities in Ehime prefecture tied the whale up with ropes in hopes of pushing it out of the cove. But the animal went into a frenzy and flipped over a small rescue boat, tossing three fishermen overboard.

Two of them were rescued, but fisherman Noriyuki Yamamoto, 58, drowned, with his body recovered later.

"When I came to my senses it dawned on me I was under water. I thought I was going to be taken by the whale and I desperately swam to the surface," said one of the fishermen, Masanori Makino, as quoted by the Yomiuri Shimbun.

But the whale, despite an injured tail, was able later to swim away.

It was spotted early Wednesday heading towards the Pacific Ocean some 12 kilometres (seven-and-a-half miles) away from the incident in Uwajima Bay, said local fisheries official Satoshi Nishikawa.

"This is the first time we've ever had a whale of this size and specimen come into our bay. I really don't know how and why it found itself here," he told AFP by telephone.

The compassion for the whale comes despite Japan's insistence on its right to whaling, which has provoked anger in many Western countries.

"I hope people in the world understand the compassion we have for this creature," said Mitsuaki Shibata, head of the local fisheries association.

"We tried to get the whale out of the cove to save its life," he said.

"But we lost one of our members instead," he said. "I'm shocked."

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