The phrase "authorities sank" is not correct in standard written English.
It may be intended to convey that authorities have failed or collapsed in some way, but it lacks clarity and proper context.
Example: "In the face of overwhelming evidence, the authorities sank into disarray, unable to respond effectively."
Alternatives: "authorities faltered" or "authorities failed".
The recent dispute escalated after the Gibraltan authorities sank concrete blocks on an artificial reef just off the coast, which Spain claims will destroy fishing in the area.
On July 13 , 1994 Cuban authorities sank a fleeing tugboat, "13 de Marzo," killing 41 people.
The woman said that Mexican authorities sank the raft leaving the migrants to sink or swim.
If the double standards of the tax authorities sink into the public consciousness, HMRC risks shifting cultural attitudes and making tax evasion a respectable response to a morally bankrupt system.
With the Reformation and then the Enlightenment, religious authority sank further, and then came the Victorians, with their elaborate, and commodified, grief culture.
In 1973, when the water went around the end of the levee and came back up Bayou Chene, Brownell, without authority, sank a fifteen-hundred-ton barge in the bayou.
Turkish authorities have sunk an A300 Airbus jet off the Aegean coast with the aim of attracting more diving tourists to the region.
He was credited by military authorities with sinking 16 Japanese ships and taking part with two other skippers in a 17th sinking, the fourth-highest total among America's World War II submarine commanders.
We need [an] environmental impact statement and a willingness by the canal authorities to sink their teeth into this.
After various mishandled muddles and a tax revolt, Mr Hollande's authority has sunk, and his poll rating has dropped to just 21%, a record low.
At least three asylum seekers have drowned and more than 150 pulled from the ocean by Indonesian authorities after their boat sank on the way to Christmas Island.
