Suspect Landmine Forces Beach Closure

Chesil Beach, England A bird watcher looking for birds along the beach stumbled across a suspicious looking metal object along the shoreline. Seeing that the round disc shaped object resembled a landmine, the bird watcher quickly backed away and called the Coastguard to report the find. The Coastguard instructed the man to phone the police which he promptly did.

The police responded and cordoned off the beach area before taking pictures of the item with a digital camera. The images were then emailed to the Royal Navy bomb disposal team based in Portsmouth. EOD technicians identified the item (shown in the image below) as not being a landmine or a military munition. Instead, EOD suspected the item being an old boiler lid from the wreck of a ship. The beach was re-opened shortly afterwards. Police thanked the man for exercising caution and raising the alarm.