At least seven dead & six injured after ferry dock mysteriously collapses during festival on Georgia’s Sapelo Island

AT slightest adjacent radical were killed and six injured aft portion of a ferry dock collapsed, sending radical plunging into the water.

Crowds had been gathering for a autumn festival connected Georgia’s Sapelo Island, organised by tiny Gullah-Geechee assemblage of Black enslaved descendants.

But successful the midst of celebrations, a gangway astatine the dock collapsed, sending astatine slightest 20 radical plunging into the water, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Capt. Chris Hodge said.

Eight radical were rushed to the hospital, astatine slightest six of them with captious injuries, according to authorities.

Crews from the U.S. Coast Guard and different exigency services were searching the h2o with helicopters and boats with side-scanning sonar.

A squad of engineers and operation specialists are besides planned to beryllium connected tract aboriginal Sunday to statesman investigating wherefore the walkway failed.

The origin of the calamity - which took spot soon earlier 4pm connected Saturday - is inactive unknown.

“There was nary collision” with a vessel oregon thing else, Natural Resources spokesperson Tyler Jones said.

“The happening conscionable collapsed. We don’t cognize why.”

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which oversees the land and runs the ferry service, stated connected Saturday nighttime that "the gangway has been secured connected Sapelo Island and the incidental is presently nether investigation."

Three times a day, connected average, ferries permission from the Sapelo-side dock to transport passengers to the mainland dock successful Meridian.

A chaplain for the DNR was among those who tragically died, a typical for the Georgia DNR named Melissa Cummings confirmed to CNN.

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