AKIPRESS.COM - A man was hit and killed by a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans on Saturday evening, the second such death in a week, The Guardian reports.

The individual, who was not immediately named, was killed at around 7pm after he appeared to fall underneath a large tandem float during the Krewe of Endymion parade near the city centre.

Witness video posted online suggested the man fell at a point in the parade route where there were no barricades to separate onlookers from floats which often pass close to the roadside.

Eyewitnesses speaking to local media suggested the man jumped to catch an item thrown from the float then slipped on beads left on the floor.

On Wednesday, 58-year-old Geraldine Carmouche was run over and killed by a tandem float. Witnesses suggested Carmouche tripped on a hitch holding the two floats together and fell underneath the second trailer.

Such deaths are rare at the annual carnival event. Local reports suggested the last similar incident occurred in 2008, when a man was struck by a float after the parade ended. In 1981 a three year-old girl was killed by a rolling float.