Azerbaijan oil rig blaze toll 7, 23 missing
Print Edition
Azerbaijan yesterday recovered the bodies of six more oil workers as hopes faded of finding more survivors following a storm which caused their offshore oil rig to catch fire in the Caspian Sea.
The discovery raised the confirmed death toll to seven while another 23 workers were still missing, feared dead after the fire which broke out on Friday.
Azeri state energy company, SOCAR, pressed on with the search operation, using helicopters and other vessels supplied by the emergencies ministry.
“The bodies of six oil workers were found on Monday 65-70 kilometers from the oil platform”, a ministry statement said.
Although officials refused to declare the missing workers dead, industry experts said there was little hope of finding any survivors.
“Nearly three days have passed since the day of the tragedy,” Mirvari Gakhramanly, head of a local non-governmental organization that defends the rights of oil workers, said.
“It’s not possible to remain alive in such weather and cold water. If someone survives it would only be thanks to a miracle,” she said, accusing the authorities of bungling the rescue operation.
Rescue workers initially lifted a total of 33 people from the rig, the open water, and a lifeboat that was suspended 10 meters above the stormy waters.
But a second lifeboat fell into the water and has not been recovered. The workers were wearing life vests and some of them were recovered from the sea at a considerable distance from the rig, the firm said.
The first body was found at the weekend.
President Ilham Aliyev, who said the disaster led to “many deaths”, had declared Sunday a day of national mourning.
The storm on Friday damaged a gas line on platform No. 10 in the deepwater Guneshli section of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore oil field, causing a fire, SOCAR said.
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