NEW ORLEANS — Rescuers in helicopters and boats searched the Gulf of Mexico for 11 missing workers Wednesday after a thunderous explosion rocked a huge oil-drilling platform the night before and lit up the sky with a pillar of flame. Seventeen people were injured, four critically.
The blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast could prove to be one of the nation’s deadliest.
The Coast Guard held out hope that the missing workers escaped in one of the platform’s covered lifeboats.
Nearly 24 hours after the explosion, the roughly 400-by- 250-foot rig continued to burn, and authorities could not say when the flames might die out. A column of boiling black smoke rose hundreds of feet over the Gulf of Mexico as fireboats shot streams of water at the blaze.
“We’re hoping everyone’s in a life raft,” Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O’Berry said.
Adrian Rose, vice president of rig owner Transocean Ltd., said the explosion appeared to be a blowout, in which natural gas or oil forces its way up a well pipe and smashes the equipment. But precisely what went wrong was under investigation.
A total of 126 workers were aboard the rig when it blew up. The Coast Guard said 17 were taken by air or sea to hospitals. Four were in critical condition. Others suffered burns, broken legs and smoke inhalation.
Nearly 100 other workers made it aboard a supply boat and were expected to reach the Louisiana shore by evening.
Kelly Eugene waited with nine family members for husband Kevin Eugene, 46, a cook on the Deepwater Horizon. A catering company operating on the rig notified her he was safe.
The rig, which was under contract to oil giant BP for exploratory drilling, was tilting as much as 10 degrees after the blast.
