The owner of Australia’s biggest theme park was fined AUS $3.6 million (USD $2.5 million). This theme park has seen various safety failures that have caused the death of 4 people on a popular water ride in 2016. 2 women and 2 men died when their rafts collided on the Thunder River Rapids ride at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast. This caused the prosecutors to file 3 charges against the owner, Ardent Leisure.
Ardent Leisure said it accepts full responsibility and apologized to the Australian Securities Exchange. Its board and executives expressed their “deepest sympathies to the victim’s families for the enormous loss to each of them from the terrible tragedy which occurred at Dreamworld and the ongoing suffering from that loss”.
The company received a lot of criticism when they tried to re-open the park before the funeral had taken place. The owner replied to this by saying that it had compensated the “majority” of families, first responders, and others impacted by the tragedy and was working to complete the outstanding claims. He further added that the construction of a memorial to the victims in Dreamworld was put on hold due to the pandemic but work is expected to restart within months.
