Workers evacuated after blaze on North Sea oil rig

Helicopters flew to the rescue of offshore oil workers on Sunday after a large blaze on a remote oil platform in the North Sea between Britain and Norway. There were no reports of any casualties at the Thistle Alpha facility, north of the Shetland Islands, while 117 personnel were airlifted to safety, a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP.
"There are 42 people remaining on board and at present they are coping well with the fire, which appears to be under control. There are two helicopters left on scene," the spokeswoman said.
Five British and two Norwegian helicopters were involved in the rescue operation, which also included a Nimrod plane from the airforce base at Kinloss in northeast Scotland.
A spokesman for Britain's Health and Safety Executive - a government body which oversees safety in the workplace - confirmed that the blaze had now been extinguished.
"Fire-fighters on the platform have put out the fire," a HSE spokeswoman said. "There are no injuries and they are going to put people back on." The rig, which is owned by Swedish company Lundin Petroleum and employs 159 people, is based 120 miles (193 kilometres) northeast of the Shetlands, off the coast of northern Scotland.
"This is just about as remote as it gets - it's just five miles inside the UK search and rescue region," Britain's Royal Air Force spokesman Michael Mulford told Sky News.
Workers had been evacuated to other nearby oil platforms, according to Mulford, who said that the operation was now being scaled down. Earlier, the RAF spokesman had described the incident as a "serious situation" and described hazardous rescue conditions with poor weather and strong north-westerly winds.
A spokesman for oil and gas services company Petrofac, which manages the platform on behalf of Lundin, said it had launched an investigation to determine what caused the blaze. "Petrofac ... can confirm that it is currently investigating an incident involving this installation," the spokesman said. "As a precautionary measure the appropriate emergency procedures have been activated and the relevant authorities have been notified," he said.