There were life jackets bobbing in the water, people forming a human chain to pass survivors to safety and dead bodies being carried asnore in blankets.

The island is home to about 70 full-time residents of the Hog Hammock community, many descendants of people enslaved at Sapelo plantations.

Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon said Sunday morning that at least 40 people were on the gangway and that half fell into the water. The dock gave way before 4 p.m. in a "catastrophic failure," prompting a response from the Coast Guard and state and local agencies.

Georgia authorities said Sunday they are investigating the “catastrophic failure” of a dock gangway that collapsed and killed seven on Sapelo Island, where crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

The "catastrophic failure" of an aluminum ferry gangway caused the deaths Saturday of seven people who were attending an annual cultural event on historic Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia, officials said Sunday.

A crowd had gathered for a celebration of the Gullah Geechee people, who have inhabited Sapelo Island since enslaved people were forcibly brought from Africa to the U.S.

ATLANTA − At least seven people were killed after part of a boat dock collapsed, sending at least 20 into the Atlantic waters off the coast of Georgia on Saturday. U.S. Coast Guard ships were searching through the night for missing people.