 The study of bismuth telerohalides using density functional theory and tight binding method reveals that pressure-induced transitions from normal semiconductor to topological insulator occur through the formation of an intermediate phase, a whale semimetal, in bite EI. This leads to modification of surface state dispersions with gapless states having linear dispersion in the topologically trivial phase. The whale semimetal phase exists in a narrow pressure interval of 0.2 gPa and the peculiarities of surface state's modification depend on band bending effect. Raman active modes frequencies are calculated for bite EI, bite EBR, and bite ECL in proposed high-pressure crystal phases to compare with experimental data. Unlike bite EI, bite EBR and bite ECL do not exhibit topological phase transition. This article was authored by I.P. Ruzinov, T.V. Menchkova, I.U. Sklyadneva, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.