Indian artist Sudarsan Pattnaik works on a sand sculpture depicting drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi at Puri beach, some 65 kilometers away from Bhubaneswar, on September 4, 2015. Charities helping refugees saw a surge in donations on September 4 across Europe as people shocked by the heart-rending images of a drowned Syrian boy on a Turkish beach dug deep to help out. The photos of the lifeless body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, lying on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, have triggered a wave of emotion across the continent, despite deep divisions among European governments on how to deal with the crisis. (Photo by Asit Kumar/AFP Photo)

Beachgoers pass a snowman made from sand on Christmas Day at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 25, 2023. (Photo by David Gray/AFP Photo)

Visitors walk past sculptures on display as part of the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Sydney on October 29, 2019. Sculpture by the Sea is the world's largest annual, free-to-the-public, outdoor sculpture exhibition. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

American model and socialite Hailey Bieber shows off her figure while rolling around in the sand on November 20, 2025. (Photo by haileybieber/Instagram)

Those lights are actually bioluminescent shrimp, better known as sea fireflies, or, in Japan, as “umibotaru”. Visible every year from May until the end of October, they live in the sand around very shallow sea water and are often seen floating between the extremes of high and low tides. Here: Bioluminescent sea fireflies glittering like diamonds on the rocks and sand. Okayama, Japan. July 2016. (Photo by Trevor Williams/Jonathan Galione/Getty Images)

These sand-swept images show the ghostly remains of what was once a mineral-rich mining community. In its heyday, the town of Kolmanskop, Namibia, was home to about 700 families. Now all that remains are empty homes filled with sand, while cast-off items such as bathtubs are scattered about the surrounding area. Over time, the sand of the stunning dunes that encircle the town of Kolmanskop has been blown towards the abandoned residences, coating everything from streets to the interiors of houses and workshops. Here: Kolmankop, an abandoned mining town in Namibia. (Photo by David Ogden/Caters News)

Workers unload baskets of sand from ships in Gabtoli Launch Ghat, Dhaka, Bangladesh in the first decade of February 2025. (Photo by Rakibul alam Khan/Solent News)

Margaret Morris dancers exercising on the sands at Saint-Idesbald. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). August 1929