Explosion sinks oil rig in Gulf

Crews searched by air and water for 11 workers still missing from the Deepwater Horizon,though one relative said family members have been told it’s unlikely anyone survived Tuesday night’s blast.

Supply vessels had been shooting water into the rig try to control the flames enough to keep it afloat,but it sank last morning,Coast Guard Petty Officer Katherine McNamara said. The fire finally went out once the rig sank.

The rig is owned by Transocean,which is under contract to oil giant BP. It was doing exploratory drilling about 80 kilometres off the coast of Louisiana.

Rescue crews have covered the 5,025-square-kilometre search area by air 12 times and by boat five times. The boats searched all night,hoping the missing workers might have been able to get to a covered lifeboat with supplies.

Carolyn Kemp yesterday said that her grandson,Roy Wyatt Kemp,27,was among the missing. She said he would have been on the drilling platform when it exploded.

“They’re assuming all those men who were on the platform are dead,” Kemp said. “That’s the last we’ve heard.”

Other relatives waited anxiously for hourly updates. Family members of one missing worker,Shane Roshto,filed a lawsuit in New Orleans yesterday accusing the rig’s owner of negligence. The suit said he was thrown overboard by the explosion and is feared dead,though it did not indicate how family members knew that was what happened to him.

The suit names Transocean Ltd and BP. A Transocean spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit and BP would not discuss the lawsuit.

Transocean Ltd spokesman Guy Cantwell said 111 workers who made it off the Deepwater Horizon safely after Tuesday night’s blast were ashore yesterday,and four others were still on a boat that operates an underwater robot. A robot will eventually be used to stop the flow of oil or gas to the rig. He said officials have not decided when that will happen.

Officials had previously said the environmental damage appeared minimal,but new challenges have arisen now that the platform has sunk.

The well could be spilling up to 8,000 barrels of crude oil a day,McNamara said,and the rig carried 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel. She didn’t know whether the crude oil was spilling into the Gulf.

Seventeen others hurt in the blast had been brought to shore Wednesday with burns,broken legs and smoke inhalation.

Four were critically injured.