Measuring eight metres in length and weighing about eight tons, the shark is thought to have been dead between five and seven days before being cast ashore.
The Phuket-based Andaman Sea Fisheries Research and Development Centre sent scientists to examine the carcass. They concluded that the animal might have been mortally wounded by a trawler.
Lanta Yai municipality organised an excavator to bury the dead shark under the beach.
Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean, growing to recorded lengths of more than 12 metres and weighing more than 20 tons.
Moving ponderously through the water, whale shark are filter feeders, living mainly off plankton. The species is considered “vulnerable” by the UN-affiliated International Union for the Conservation of Nature.