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Accident in Caspian Sea: Six vessels sent to site

15 December 2016 09:58 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan’s State Maritime Administration has made a statement on the accident that took place in the Caspian Sea on Dec. 15 night.

According to information received by the National Center from Garadagh district port control inspectorate, strong wind blew away the tower of the NST-3 derrick on the Sangachal pier, Tural Museyibov, spokesman for the State Maritime Administration, told APA.

“After a careful consideration of the accident, the State Maritime Administration’s Long Range Identification and Tracing National Center informed all the concerned bodies. In consideration of possible search and rescue operations, vessels nearby—“Gultakin Asgarova”, “Vadim Seyidov”, and “Vikhr-5”—were sent to the site of accident,” said Museyibov.

In the second stage, the “Caspian Provider”, “Caspian Pride”, and “LankÉ™ran” ships were deployed to the site to eliminate the consequences of the accident, he added.

Museyibov noted that the National Center is coordinating the processes of eliminating the consequences of the accident and searching for the people feared to have fallen into the sea.

Earlier, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR said in a statement that an accident took place at about 05:00 a.m., on Dec. 15, due to strong wind, which blew away a part of a flyover of the 150-meter long oil-gathering station. Meanwhile, the board attached to the flyover and a booth on it were also blown away.

According to the preliminary data, five people, who were on duty at the gathering station, and five people, who were in the booth, are missing.

The list of missing people:

1.Guloglan Zulfugarov – engineer

2. Azay Zulfugarov – operator

3. Vidadi Gurbanov – operator

4. Elchin Hasanov - mechanical engineer

5. Hasanagha Hajialiyev – operator

6. Ilham Gafarov – operator

7. Samir Asadov – operator

8. Javid Bahramov – operator

9. Ramiz Abbasov – engineer

10. Gorkhmaz Rustamov – operator

Vessels of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC are at the site; search and rescue work continues. The message also said that leadership of SOCAR, Ministry of Emergency Situations and Azneft are at the event site. A special group has been created to investigate the accident.