A frantic race is on to save scores of whales stranded on an island near Australia's southern state of Tasmania.

In one of the biggest mass beachings in Australia, 200 pilot whales came ashore on King Island on Sunday evening, only 54 of which are still alive. Among the whales are a number of dolphins, according to Chris Arthur, from Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife.

Around 150 local people are helping parks officials in trying to refloat the whales from a Naracoopa beach and shepherd them back to sea, where a large number of whales were still milling in a pod.

Local man John Nievaart, who has spent the morning on the beach with the mammals, told the Hobart Mercury: "It is pretty darn sad, you can hear them crying.

"There are as many volunteers as whales down here. We are keeping them wet and have got them covered with anything we could get our hands on, bedspreads, blankets and towels.

"Some students from Clarendon College in Victoria managed to get a baby whale back in the water but it came back to the pod twice.

"It was heartbreaking to watch."

Anderw Wardlaw, the general manager of King Island Council said: "There is such a mess of bodies down here but the community has rallied and kept the surviving whales alive with bucket brigades and other measures."

Mr Arthur insisted that the volunteers' efforts were not in vain. "It's amazing, some will some die straight away, some will survive for days. These are fairly robust animals, pilot whales, we experienced that in the past," said Mr Arthur. "While they're alive there is a chance," he said.

By late Monday, 48 animals had been returned to the sea but rescuers had a new danger on their hands with fears that another pod of whales off the coast would also beach themselves.

"There's always a danger the animals here in distress will call the other animals in," said Mr Arthur. Rescuers in small boats are concentrating on steering the sea-going pod away from the beach.

The latest mass beaching takes the number of whales stranded in Tasmania's northwest over the past three months to more than 400, and comes after the deaths of 48 sperm whales in January.

Tasmania is a hot spot for whale strandings, as they pass by on their migratory routes to and from Antarctica but it is unusual to have so many beached, and highly unusual for dolphins and whales to be stranded together.

The causes of strandings are still unknown, although scientists at the University of Tasmania have linked a peak in a wind pattern cycle, which brings prey, with the frequency of stranding.

Exploration for oil and gas is also being blamed by some conservationists for disturbing the mammals.

Ness Pearce, the national director for research of the lobby group Sea Shepherd, said: "Dolphins don't beach. It just doesn’t happen unless an individual has a brain disorder. So to get so many whales and dolphins stranded at once is extraordinarily unusual.

"When you find that the areas where the animals are commonly stranded are those where there is coal, oil and gas exploration going on through the use of seismic activities, there is undoubtedly something going on here other than nature."

Another theory that has gained credence is disturbance of echo-location, possibly by naval sonar. In 2005, after a report by the Department of Environment showed a possibility of stressed whales being further upset by noise, the Royal Australian Navy said that it would avoid operations in areas where whales were beaching.

A naval ship had been using sonar near where 145 whales and dolphins died at Mation Bay on Tasmania's east coast in October of that year.

In 2006, after the death of a bottlenose whale stranded for two days in the Thames, marine scientists blamed navy sonar and military explosions for disorienting the mammal.

Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries and Water confirmed that they are investigating whether any seismic activity may have interfered with today's stranded animals.

"As a matter of protocol … the Government touches base with both defence and the oil and gas industry to determine whether there is any naval exercises or exploration taking place in the area before the stranding," spokeswoman Rosemary Gales said.

"It's not typical for dolphins to become stranded with whales but it has happened several times in the past," she said.

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