Tourists have been left stunned by a bubbling two-metre hole that opened on the sand at a popular beach.
The gaping, geyser-like hole was spotted at Main Beach on the Gold Coast by local Carolyn Evans while she was on her way to work on Tuesday morning.
Ms Evans uploaded pictures of the large hole to Facebook yesterday.
She described the ‘crazy’ moment she saw water bubbling out of the ground.
‘I couldn’t believe it, I have never seen anything like this before,’ she said.
‘I spoke to some tradesmen who working nearby and they were also quite shocked.’
The images showed a gaping hole filled with water erupting out of the surface. The hole formed just metres away from the shores of the beach.
‘I contacted my local councillor Darren Taylor to let him know about the hole,’ Ms Evan wrote.
‘I was concerned about safety.’
Social media users who commented on the post expressed their fears about a potential sinkhole opening up.
A Gold Coast Council spokeswoman told Daily Mail the hole opened up while testing was taking place as part of the Surfers Paradise Sand Backpass System.
‘Routine pressure testing of the system on Tuesday identified a small leak which caused the incident in the sand at Main Beach,’ the spokeswoman said.
‘The leak was quickly identified and subsequently repaired that day and the affected area was backfilled with sand’.
The Surfers Paradise Sand Backpass project has been set up to protect beaches on the Gold Coast from erosion.
The project involves the replenishment of sand from The Spit on the northern end of Main Beach to Surfers Paradise and Narrowneck.
The Gold Coast Waterways Authority Sand Bypass System (GCWA), which is located at The Spit, pumps around 120,000 square metres of sand to be redirected to beaches in the south.
The project is currently being tested before it gets rolled out next week.