Earlier incidents include eight teenagers killed in a 1984 fire at the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in New Jersey in the United States; seven dead in Sydney's Luna Park ghost train fire in 1979; six people killed by a failed simulated rocket launch in Shenzhen, China, in 2010 and five children killed when the Battersea Park Big Dipper malfunctioned in Britain in 1972. • Eyewitness describes harrowing Dreamworld accident as rapids ride 'flipped' leaving woman 'hanging by her foot' on Australia's Gold Coast

Police are investigating if the cause of the incident was equipment malfunction or if it was human error. Just got off a ride 15 mins ago that has 1 person seriously injured & 2 others trapped 😧😓 #Dreamworld — Matthew Centrowitz (@MattCentrowitz) October 25, 2016

The Thunder River Rapids Ride is currently Australia’s only river rapids ride and opened on December 11, 1986, reports the Gold Coast Bulletin. "One of the rides had sustained some sort of malfunction, causing two people to be ejected from a ride, another two people were caught inside the ride," said Gavin Fuller, acting senior operations supervisor for Queensland Ambulance Service. He did not know whether the two victims who were caught in the ride were trapped under water, or caught up in the machinery. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the families involved and their loved ones.”

The company also issued a statement saying it was working with police to establish the facts. “Dreamworld’s focus and priority is with the families of those involved in this tragedy and will be providing an update to the public as soon as information becomes available.”

The park will remain closed on Wednesday and Ardent Leisure — the owner of Dreamworld — saw its share price plunge following the incident. Lia Capes said: “We saw [a] little girl and we believe it was her mum because it was just her and her little sister that was an infant.”

“We tried to comfort her to the side to distract her.”

She also said: “I was speaking to one of the guys and he said it was the raft or the boat thing in front of him, the whole thing flipped and everyone was screaming.”

A male witness said “there were kids on board screaming while their mum was trapped under”.
An accident on board the Thunder River Rapids Ride at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, leaves four people dead.