‘Super bazooka’ round discovered on Calif. state beach near Malibu

Point Mugu State Park and a neighboring stretch Pacific Coast Highway were briefly closed Sunday after lifeguards patrolling the beach discovered an unexploded bazooka round dating to the 1950s, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

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Dan Turock, a detective with the department’s major crimes bomb and arson unit, said this was about the 10th round they’ve discovered in recent years on the beach, which neighbors U.S. Naval Base Ventura County. Turock said that part of the beach used to be connected to the naval base and is where training and munitions practice was conducted in the 1940s and 1950s.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve had an issue where now that the beach is eroding and you know tides are changing, that all these old ordnance, you know, munitions are now washing up onto the beach, where the sand is eroding,” Turock told SFGATE. “They’re becoming exposed.”

After the sheriff’s department bomb squad determined the device could still be dangerous, they contacted the U.S. Navy, who are in charged of disposing of all found naval munitions, no matter how old.

“The Navy decided to detonate that device right there on the beach,” Turock said. He said past munitions have also been detonated on the beach because they were too dangerous to move off site.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office then evacuated the beach and briefly shut down the Pacific Coast Highway for safety.

“Then they basically detonated it on the sand,” Turock said. “They dug a hole, buried it down inside the hole, and and made it go away.”

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Requests for further comment from the U.S. Navy and California State Parks were not immediately returned by the time of publication.

Turock said the round was from a “super bazooka” weapon used during the Korean War in the 1950s. The oblong munition is about a foot long and shaped like a football. Turock said past devices have been found covered with barnacles or waterlogged, but he cautioned they are still dangerous.

“Even though it’s super old and it’s been in the water for 70 years, those explosives can still function,” he said. “So people should just not be touching anything that looks like a bomb.”