At a Glance
- Severe erosion in September washed away much of Stockton Beach in Newcastle.
- The erosion uncovered thousands of anti-tank devices from World War II.
- Surfers and swimmers could be impaled on the spiky tank traps, a resident warns.
Severe erosion on an Australian beach has uncovered thousands of potentially hazardous spiky World War II tank traps.
The concrete blocks with protruding sharp poles stretch for miles along Stockton Beach near Newcastle, New South Wales, according to Yahoo News Australia. They were originally placed along the shore during the war as a defense device. Later they were dismantled, and some were used to help control erosion, one resident said.
Unprecedented coastal erosion in August and September, when ocean swells battered the beach for five weeks, washed away more than 8 feet of sand and uncovered the chunks, news.com.au reported. It was the most severe erosion in 20 years.
(MORE: Erosion Washes Away Australian Beach, Leaving Towering Sand Cliffs)
“The vast majority of them have big spikes on them and some are waist deep in the water ... they’re almost more dangerous as they’re impossible to see,” Stockton Beach resident Simon Jones told Yahoo News. “There’s a fair amount of people who come from out of town and they wouldn’t know they were there. If it was me I would just run up and dive into the water. You could dive straight on top of them.”
Jones said the traps cover part of the beach popular with surfers.
“Not long ago someone on a paddleboard was washed over them and had his board badly smashed up, but it could have been a lot worse. He could have been impaled," Jones told news.com.au. “It’s a pretty significant hazard for someone who doesn’t know they’re there."
A local government minister recently announced about $120,000 had been made available to replace a little more than 6,000 tons of sand.
Jones, who heads a grassroots campaign called Save Stockton Beach, said that's not nearly enough, and residents would like to see a more permanent solution.
Erosion has been a big problem at Stockton Beach for decades.
Associate Professor Ron Boyd, of Newcastle University's School of Environmental and Life Sciences, told the Sydney Morning Herald breakwaters and a deep water channel have disrupted wave patterns. The new patterns prevent any new sand from reaching Stockton Beach.
