SOCAR is unable to explain why the oil companies continue to die at sea (UPDATED-Video 2)

In a rescue operation for today’s collapse of the marine trestle near the village of Garadagh,  were involved 10 ships and helicopters. They are looking for the  10 workers missing at 5 am . By 03:00 o'clock I was  found the body of a the oil worker Ilham Gafarov near Alat settlement, said at  a press conference in SOCAR  the chief engineer of the state oil company said Balamirza Agaragimov.

Regarding the reasons for the collapse of the overpass of 150 meters, he said that the overpass was built in 1978 and was renovated in August of this year.

"After the announcement of a storm warning, all the procedural rules have been complied with,  and the majority of workers were evacuated,"  he said.

The chief engineer did not say why the work was carried out on the viaduct, not capable of withstanding storm. Meanwhile, the press service of the Head of State made a statement that the president personally monitoring the rescue operations and ordered as soon as possible to find the missing oil workers. -71В-

2016 December 15 (Wednesday) 10:43:20

At 5 a.m. on December 15 there was an accident at the maritime oil and gas field of SOCAR named after Narimanov. As a result of a storm, an overpass 150 meters long collapsed.

According to SOCAR, an area with premises for the oilmen also collapsed. According to preliminary data, at the time there were five people on duty at the point of collection of oil, and five more were in other places. All of them are missing.

The list includes:

1. Zulfuqarov Guloglan - driver

2 Zulfuqarov Azay - operator

3 Gurbanov Vidadi - operator

4. Elchin Hasanov - mechanic

5. Hajaliyev Hasanaga - operator

6. Gafarov Ilham - operator

7. Samir Asadov - operator

8. Bakhramov Javid - operator

9. Ramiz Abbasov - driver

10. Rustamov Korkmaz - operator

The rescue services of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Caspian Shipping Company are involved in the rescue operations at the scene. A commission has been set up to investigate the causes of the accident, SOCAR said.

In turn, the head of the Committee to Protect Oilmen’s Rights, Mirvari Gahramanli told Turan the body of one of the missed oilmen was found.

According to her, the collapsed premises were built recently, but the overpass was built in the Soviet times.

The incident was reportedly caused by the use of obsolete equipment and the lack of adequate measures to protect workers in the sea. Despite the many tragedies, SOCAR leadership and the government did not draw the appropriate conclusions.

The hope to rescue someone alive is extremely small. A man can survive in icy water no more than 30 minutes.

Recall that there were several tragedies on offshore oil platforms in the past year. The biggest one occurred on December 4, 2015 on the 10^th platform in the field Guneshli.

Then, more than 30 people died in the accident that was the biggest one in the history of offshore oil and gas extraction in Azerbaijan. The tragedy occurred as a result of fire caused by a gas leak. Sixty-five people were trapped on the offshore platform. Only half of the oilmen were saved. Some of the victims have not been found until now. The bodies of 13 people were found by rescuers weeks or even months after the accident. -16D-