Thread by @weatherindia

Severe erosion on an Australian beach has uncovered thousands of potentially hazardous spiky World War II tank traps.

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/ne…

📸: Facebook/Simon Jones/Save Stockton Beach

The concrete blocks with protruding sharp poles stretch for miles along Stockton Beach near Newcastle, New South Wales. 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.

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. It was the most severe erosion in 20 years.

“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.

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 @UniofNewcastle'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.