Roller coaster malfunction traps 14 at Australian amusement park

BRISBANE (REUTERS) -A roller coaster accident at a theme park in the Australian state of Queensland trapped 14 people for more than three hours on Sunday afternoon. No injuries were reported and and all those affected were freed.

The Green Lantern roller coaster at the Warner Bros. theme park on Australia's Gold Coast malfunctioned at 12.50pm on Sunday, causing two carriages to stop suddenly. Brisbane man Stephen Moss told Fairfax Media he heard a "bang" and saw part of a wheel fitting come loose.

"There are two rows of seats in the carriage and the back row started to fall to the right," he said. "It fell about 30 degrees and my wife and I thought these people were dead. We thought it would fall, but it went about 30 degrees and then stopped."

Those trapped in the higher of the two carriages were stuck roughly 30 metres above the ground. At the lower carriage, rescuers dispensed water and umbrellas to protect riders from the sun before returning it to safety where they disembarked.

Once the higher carriage was stabilised, rescuers used a cherry picker to return all riders to Earth a little after three hours following the accident.

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