Theme park Dreamworld will not reopen until after the funerals for the four victims, chief executive Craig Davidson says.
Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozbeh Araghi were killed along with 42-year-old Cindy Low when the Thunder River Rapids ride malfunctioned on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Davidson was among about 400 Dreamworld staff that held a private memorial inside the park yesterday morning.
Yesterday afternoon he said the park was remaining closed for now.
“No parts of the park will open until at least after the funerals of the four people who tragically lost their lives,” Mr Davidson said.
He said all rides would also be examined and re-certified “so we are absolutely 100 per cent sure of our business”.
“No attraction in this park will be reopening until internal and external safety audits and are peer-reviewed by international experts and the regulator,” he said.
“We have not set a timeline for the reopening of rides at Dreamworld.”
Police investigation is ‘growing in complexity’.
Meanwhile, Queensland police Commissioner Ian Stewart said specialist investigators had been brought in from multiple government agencies.
“That investigation is, to some degree, growing in complexity,” he said.
“The investigation at Dreamworld will take time and that investigation will be ongoing and I’m very grateful to the community’s understanding of that.
“It has been a very, very difficult week for all of us here in Queensland.”
Mr Davidson also addressed questions about the operator of the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
“The ride operator in control of the Thunder River Rapids Ride was an experienced operator with the competency training to operate that ride,” Mr Davidson said.
He said staff would continue to be paid while the park was closed.
“We certainly will be looking after our team,” he said.
“We have many parts of the team that still require maintenance to keep things kept up so there will be staff in the park.”
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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Top Comments
Finally a decent response from Dreamworld! It should have been this from the beginning!
I agree. I was surprised when they tried to reopen so soon. It feels like there's an attitude that money comes before everything and I wonder if that played a part in the accident.
The fact that they didn't postpone their meeting to decide bonuses was crass too.
By law they couldn't postpone the meeting. It would have been illegal.