Tourist beach horror as human head washes up on sand in full sight of traumatised worker

A horrified worker made a gruesome discovery on a popular , finding a human head washed up on the shore. The grim find sparked a major investigation.

The worker, who was raking the beach around 8.30am on Tuesday morning, immediately called 911. Miami-Dade Police Department confirmed the head was human and quickly cordoned off the area with tape and traffic cones as they began their investigation.

The identity of the individual remains unknown, reports

The local medical examiner has joined police detectives in the rush to discover who the dead person is.

Miami-Dade Police told that homicide detectives are now investigating.

A police spokesperson said: "Detectives are on scene and are working with the Medical Examiner to determine the identity of the individual."

The discovery has disturbed local people in the community.

Local resident Bahman Amini told News: "You see all kinds of things here but nothing like this, like we saw this morning. The head of a person. "

Another local person told "This is my typical route. Our neighbourhood is very safe. We have our children here; our children play on these beaches and it's just beyond belief."

A beach walker said she had no idea of the situtation until a police worker blocked off her normal route. The unnamed woman told NBC10: "He signalled with his finger that I needed to turn around immediately. I understood the assignment."

She added that the find was "quite disturbing."

Meanwhile, Alex Portuondo, a former resident of South Beach visiting the area from Denver, told CBS News: "That's pretty scary and crazy. I have never heard of anything like this happening before on this kind of beach. I guess I am curious if they have any information on where it came from, if anything else has been found, if it happened here on the island or washed up on the shore. I guess I assume it might have happened someplace else and washed up here but I do worry because of this."

Kristy Sippel, a tourist from New York City, told the outlet: "It is scary. I would like to know what happened."

Mollie McAuliffe of Miami said: "I have questions about where it came from, where the remains came from. It is pretty upsetting."