NEW ORLEANS — The oil rig 50 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana where an explosion occurred Tuesday night has collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico, a Coast Guard official said.
The rig had been taking on water from the firefighting efforts.
Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said on Thursday that the rig sank “sometime this morning.”
“We have multiple vessels on scene — all response vessels — and they are on scene there to help to mitigate the effects of the pollution,” Petty Officer Atkeson said in a telephone interview. He added that it was not clear how much oil had spilled into the ocean.
Nor was it immediately clear what, if any, environmental implications the rig’s collapse would have.
On Wednesday, as firefighters battled the fire on the rig, Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the commander of the Coast Guard’s Eighth District, estimated that 13,000 gallons of crude were pouring out of it every hour. At that time, officials said that the pollution was considered minimal, because most of the oil and gas was being burned up in the fire.
“But that does have the potential to change,” said David Rainey, vice president of BP, the oil company that leased the rig. Mr. Rainey is in charge of the company’s exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
The rig, called the Deepwater Horizon, was positioned about 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., in water nearly 5,000 feet deep. Transocean, the Swiss-based company that owns the rig, said it had been under contract to BP since September 2007.
Tragic. Eleven workers are still unaccounted for from the initial explosion.