“We haven’t had a tropical cyclone hit that part of the coast for 50 years,” he told Today.

“We’ve seen waves as high as four-storey buildings doing a lot of work out there.”

The damaging surf, which has continued for days, has torn away a lot of sand from beaches.

“In the the largest types of these events, it can take multiple years, even up to a decade for the beach to recover to its pre-storm sand volume,” Kinsela said.

He said recovery would depend on what happened next, including winter storms.

An excavator was brought in yesterday to drag a lifeguard tower at Main Beach on the Gold Coast several metres further back from the beach, where it was at risk of toppling into the ocean.

Much of of the walkway along that beach will be undermined by further erosion and the entire area is being taped off by police.

A record-17-metre wave was recorded off the Queensland coast near Brisbane yesterday.