Blue whale carcass covered with graffiti

Santiago : A blue whale carcass has been stomped on by people taking selfies and covered in graffiti after it washed up on a beach in Chile.

The huge 66ft whale created a stir among locals after it was discovered on the shoreline of Punta Arenas in the Magallanes Region of the country.

But pictures soon emerged online showing people clambering on the dead mammal’s body and trampling on its back.

Footprints could be seen on its carcass and one online picture showed how someone had scrawled ‘Ana, I love you’ on its flank.

Furious social media users have hit out at the ‘vandals’.

One, called Carmen Julia Gonzalez Escanilla, said: ‘We are losing respect and empathy for everything today.’

The whale has now been taken away by Chilean authorities to establish its cause of death.