A South African aquarium has been bursting at the seams after hundreds of baby sea turtles were washed up on beaches by a rare and powerful storm. The little turtles are mostly endangered loggerheads and should be cruising the ocean.

Over 500 of the creatures are rescued. The aquarium is rehabilitating around 400 of the roughly 530 sick and injured turtles that were brought in, while sending the rest to two other aquariums to spread the load. The turtles are ranked according to how sick they are, with some needing intensive care due to injuries, malnutrition or infection.

In South Africa, loggerheads hatch on the northeast coast on the far side of the country from Cape Town usually. Baby turtles have to fend for themselves from the moment they hatch on beaches and make their way to the ocean. However, the powerful storm that recently hit the Cape Town area, leaving hundreds of baby turtles needing help.

“What we haven’t seen before is over 500 turtles in two weeks, which is what the last little bit of time has brought us,” Noble-Trull, the head of the Turtle Conservation Center said. Because the conservation centre usually receives a few to maybe 100 stranded young turtles in the three to four months after hatching season. It has a normal capacity of 150 turtles.

Turtles spend almost all their lives in the ocean, apart from when they’re born and when females return to shore to lay eggs. Because of that, they’re “ocean indicators. After rescued, the team found that little bits of soft plastic, little bits of hard plastic are floating all along the oceans and turtles are eating them, these turtles are coming at us with a message that our oceans are not a safe place for them.