Baku asks Caspian littoral states for aid to search for bodies of oil workers
BAKU. Dec 6 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan asked the Caspian littoral countries to help searching in their internal territorial waters for the bodies of Azerbaijani oil workers, who are considered missing after the incident on offshore platform No. 10 on the Gyuneshli oil field.
"Concrete instructions were given at a meeting of the state committee investigating the causes of the incident on Sunday. An address was sent to the border services in Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan asking to recover the bodies of the casualties in this tragedy, if they surface in their territorial waters," Vice President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) Khalig Mamedov said at a press conference on Sunday.
Two helicopters of the State Border Service and another four from the Ministry of Emergency Situations are involved in the search for the missing oil field workers, he said. Along with this, all fishing vessels are also instructed to recover the dead bodies from the water.
"All the leadership of agencies, including SOCAR, is staying in the sea," he said.
As it was reported the fire broke out at 5.40 p.m. on stationary offshore platform No. 10 due to the failure of a gas line on Friday. The bad weather has brought about the problems for rescue ships to reach the incident area. The evacuation has been conducted by Vikhr-9, Topaz fire vessels, the Avior diving support ship and the Samir Guliyev offshore support ship.
On Saturday, President Ilham Aliyev has set up a state committee by his decree. The committee was tasked to accelerate the search for those missing and the rescue operation, find out the causes of the incident and take urgent measures to eliminate the consequences of the tragedy. Prime Minister Artur Rasizade was named head of the state committee. The committee comprises chiefs of 11 ministries and state structures of the country.
A criminal case was opened over the offshore platform incident under Article 225.2 (violation of the fire safety rules that entailed grave consequences).
December 6 was announced a day of national mourning in the country.
