SYDNEY (AP) – Two young children are fortunate to be alive, police said Wednesday, after they were thrown clear and survived an accident that killed four people including their mothers on a river rapids ride at a popular theme park in Australia.
Two men and two women died in the accident on Tuesday at Dreamworld, a park on Queensland state’s Gold Coast, Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd said.
The Thunder River Rapids ride whisks people in circular rafts along a fast-moving, artificial river, with a conveyor belt helping move the rafts through the water. Closed-circuit television footage showed the ride was coming to its conclusion when two rafts collided, Codd said.
“One has flipped backward and it has caught and tossed some of the people that were on the ride backward into the conveyor belt,” Codd told reporters.
The two children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, who shared the raft with the victims were thrown clear and managed to escape, he said.