Shock wake-up for residents as WWII shell detonated on beach
Residents on Queensland's Sunshine Coast were woken in shock by an early morning blast when the Defence Force detonated an unexploded World War II-era shell found on a beach.
Police were called to Wurtulla Beach just before midnight after Sean Mackney's friend discovered an object at the base of a sand dune while they were walking his dog.
"She yelled out to me and she thought that she'd found a bomb and I was like, 'What?'" he said.
Curious, Mr Mackney picked up the object before realising what it was.
"I'm a bit of an idiot … I was shitting myself," he said.
"The sheer weight of it was massive.
"I didn't really know what to do … we called the police and they were down there pretty quick.
"I'm surprised nobody else had seen it and [wonder] how long it was exposed."
Police officers attended and guarded the site until Department of Defence personnel arrived.
A Defence spokesman confirmed the unexploded ordnance was "identified as a 25-pound High Explosive projectile (25 Pounder) from World War II".
Explosion wakes residents
Defence bomb squad personnel detonated the 11-kilogram device at about 4am.
The 25-pounder artillery shells were used during World War II. The yellow one, second from right, is similar to the one found on the Sunshine Coast. (Supplied: Department of Defence)
Battery Hill resident Rhiannon McPherson said she was woken by "a massive bang".
"I thought maybe a bad car accident or something … it sounded like something really big had dropped onto cement," she said.
"I was waiting to hear sirens but didn’t hear anything.
"I woke my husband but he hadn't heard it. My dog didn't bark, which threw me off as well.
"I was trying to work out if I'd made it up or I'd dreamt it."
History of unexploded devices
The region was home to a live firing site during World War II and the Wurtulla are is listed on the Defence website as having substantial potential for unexploded ordnance.
Unexploded ordnance is a risk on the Sunshine Coast. The red areas indicate "substantial potential" of the presence of a device.. (Supplied: Department of Defence)
The 25-pounder was "the primary artillery piece of the Commonwealth Forces until the 1960s", according to the Defence department.
The guns were built in Australia from 1942 and were used by the Australian Army until 1965.
The "high explosive" variant was about 30 centimetres long and contained a nose fuse and up to 900 grams of amatol — a mix of TNT and ammonium nitrate.
"Unexploded items of this type are most often found in/near areas used by the Army for artillery practices, typically on the ground surface up to 1.5 metres deep," the Defence website says.
The ADF's bomb disposal squad responds to about 500 unexploded ordnance incidents around Australia each year.
Last year officials detonated three World War II-era bombs on a remote Northern Territory beach, and in 2024 a device was blown up on the NSW South Coast.
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