At least seven people were killed and more injured on Saturday after part of a ferry port on Georgia’s Sapelo island collapsed, authorities said.
Twenty people entered the water when the gangway collapsed, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which operates the wharf, said in a statement to CBS News.
At least seven people are believed to have been killed and “an unknown number” were injured, the agency said.
Georgia DNR and several emergency services deployed helicopters and boats with sonar to conduct search and rescue efforts, the report said.
Several people were taken to area hospitals, Georgia DNR spokesman Tyler Jones told the Associated Press.
The incident happened as crowds gathered on the island for a celebration of the small Gullah-Geechee community of black slave descendants.
Jones said he did not know what caused the gangway to collapse. The gangway connected an outside dock where people boarded the ferry to another dock on land.
A Georgia Department of Natural Resources chaplain was among those killed, Jones said.
Sapelo Island is located about 90 kilometers south of Savannah and can be reached by boat from the mainland.
In one after On social media, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp wrote that he and his family were “heartbroken by today’s tragedy on Sapelo Island. As state and local first responders continue to work this active scene, we ask that all Georgians join us in praying for the lost. , for those who are still in danger, and for their families.”
Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia also wrote in a social media post that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had “dispatched state resources to assist with search, rescue and recovery efforts.”
Cultural Day is an annual fall event that spotlights the island’s small community of Hogg Hummock, home to several dozen black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded by former slaves from Thomas Spalding’s cotton plantation.
Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South – known as Gullah or Geechee in Georgia – are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say their separation from the mainland allowed residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as casting net fishing and basket weaving.
