Claims extracted
24
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
4%
1 of 24 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
67/100
ABC News (AU)'s corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
World
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
In short:
Residents of a busy Queensland coastal region woke in shock after hearing an explosion at about 4am.
asserted
Residents → wake → am
A man walking his dog with a friend discovered the unexploded ordnance on a Sunshine Coast beach at about midnight.
The Defence Force's bomb squad detonated the 11-kilogram shell.
asserted
squad → walk → shell
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.
asserted
Force → wake → 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.
"
asserted
they → call → dog
She yelled out to me and she thought that she'd found a bomb and I was like, 'What?'" he said.
asserted
he → yell → bomb
Curious, Mr Mackney picked up the object before realising what it was.
asserted
it → pick → object
"I'm a bit of an idiot … I was shitting myself," he said.
"
asserted
he → shit → myself
I didn't really know what to do … we called the police and they were down there pretty quick.
asserted
they → know → police
I'm surprised nobody else had seen it and [wonder] how long it was exposed."
asserted
it → surprise → it
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".
asserted
ordnance → attend → II
Explosion wakes residents
Defence bomb squad personnel detonated the 11-kilogram device at about 4am.
asserted
personnel → wake → am
Battery Hill resident Rhiannon McPherson said she was woken by "a massive bang".
asserted
she → say → bang
"I thought maybe a bad car accident or something … it sounded like something really big had dropped onto cement," she said.
asserted
she → think → cement
I was waiting to hear sirens but didn’t hear anything.
"
asserted
I → wait → anything
I woke my husband but he hadn't heard it.
asserted
he → wake → it
My dog didn't bark, which threw me off as well.
asserted
which → bark → me
"I was trying to work out if I'd made it up or I'd dreamt it."
asserted
I → try → 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.
asserted
Wurtulla → list → ordnance
The 25-pounder was "the primary artillery piece of the Commonwealth Forces until the 1960s", according to the Defence department.
uncertain
pounder → accord → department
The guns were built in Australia from 1942 and were used by the Australian Army until 1965.
asserted
guns → build → 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.
asserted
variant → contain → TNT
"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.
asserted
website → find → surface
The ADF's bomb disposal squad responds to about 500 unexploded ordnance incidents around Australia each year.
asserted
squad → respond → Australia
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.
asserted
device → detonate → Coast
The Aporia