MEXICO CITY, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- The collision of a
drilling rig and an offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico has left 19 dead
and four others missing, said Mexico's state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos
(Pemex) Thursday.
Pemex director Jesus Reyes Heroles told Mexican
senators that 63 people have been rescued, vowing to continue the search for the
missing "until we are absolutely sure there is very low possibility of finding
anyone alive."
On Tuesday an offshore drilling platform of Pemex in
the Kab oil field, southeastern Gulf of Mexico, lurched onto its side in high
winds and collided with an adjacent rig. As a result, 81 workers and five rescue
staff abandoned the drilling rig in stormy weather that generated waves of up to
eight meters high and winds of 130 km per hour.
The company said it will open an investigation into
why the platform, which is fixed to the sea bed and should have withstood
gale-force winds, sloped.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday changed
his agenda and traveled to the accident's site in the state of Campeche to
supervise the rescue efforts and visited some of the survivors.
He blamed the bad weather as the "fundamental" cause
of the accident, but saying he has ordered a "most exhaustive investigation."
The accident has also resulted in oil and gas leak
from the platform. Pemex estimated that it would take three or five days to
control the leak, but saying most of the leaked was gas and the spill of crude
oil has been less than the previous estimation.
Tuesday's tragedy is considered Pemex's worst
accident since November of 1998, when two Pemex helicopters crashed at high
seas, killing 22 crew members.
Reyes Heroles acknowledged that Pemex, one of the
world's biggest fossil fuel enterprises, has maintenance and security problems.
