Seven dead after ferry dock gangway collapses in US

October 20

At least seven people have been killed after part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, according to officials.

Multiple people were taken to hospitals, and crews from the US Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others were searching the water for any other survivors, said Tyler Jones, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Jones said a gangway at the dock collapsed and sent people plunging into the water.

It happened as crowds gathered on the island for a celebration of its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

Sapleo Island is about 100km south of Savannah and is reachable from the mainland by boat.

Jones said he did not know what caused the gangway to collapse, but officials believe there were at least 20 people on it at the time. The gangway connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore.

Among the dead was a chaplain for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Jones said.

Cultural Day is an annual fall event spotlighting the island’s tiny community of Hogg Hummock, which is home to a few dozen Black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

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 caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

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