Moscow: An oil drilling rig with 67 crew on board capsized and sank off the Russian far eastern island of Sakhalin yesterday when it ran into a storm while being towed, leaving 49 of the crew unaccounted for, the regional Emergencies Ministry said.
Fourteen crew members were rescued alive from the Kolskaya jack-up rig, operated by Russian offshore exploration company Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka (AMNGR), and four bodies were recovered. The rest of the crew were missing.
"The floating drilling rig capsized 200 kilometres off the coast of Sakhalin island at 12.45 local time [0145 GMT]," the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement on its website. The statement said a rescue craft and helicopters had been sent to the site to scour the waters for survivors.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered all necessary help be allocated to the search and rescue of any remaining survivors in the icy waters, while the Emergencies Ministry said it would work through the night.
The disaster posed no ecological danger, but it will deal a blow to efforts by Russia, the world's largest energy producer, to step up offshore oil and gas exploration to offset a long-term production decline in onshore production.
"There is no ecological danger. The vessel was carrying the minimum amount of fuel as it was being tugged by two craft," said a spokesman for AMNGR, a unit of state-owned Zarubezhneft.
The Neftegaz-55 tugboat, also owned by AMNGR, had been towing the Kolskaya rig and took part in the search effort, but pulled out after suffering hull damage. The tug, carrying 11 crew rescued from the rig, was limping to port.
An icebreaker, the Magadan, was still at the scene.
Most of the missing crew were from the far eastern town of Magadan, AMNGR said. The company, based in the northern port of Murmansk, flew out counsellors to support relatives.
He said a company commission was working out the financial losses from the lost drilling vessel.
