<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3>Fire breaks out on Indian oil rig

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- E IIMA -->A fire has swept through an oil platform off the west coast of India in the country's most important oil field.

India's Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said that up to 300 people were on the platform. He told the BBC that many had been rescued but some may have died.

The platform is some 160km (100 miles) off the coast of Mumbai, India's commercial capital.

Some reports say an oil rig, a mobile unit that drills into the sea bed, collided with the static platform.

In the ensuing blaze the reports say the 400 people on board the platform jumped into the Arabian Sea.

An Indian coast guard told the BBC in Mumbai that 271 workers had so far been rescued. But he said the fate of nearly 130 workers was unknown.

Two navy helicopters have been trying to rescue workers but have been hampered by the flames.

The platform, in the Bombay High field, is run by the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and produces 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

'Major accident'

Earlier Oil Minister Aiyar told journalists in Delhi: "We had a major fire and the platform has been completely destroyed."

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The Bombay High field is India's biggest oil field, accounting for some 260,000 barrels a day overall.

The fire began at 1630 local time (1130 GMT).

ONGC's website described the fire as "a major accident".

It said that some helicopters that might have been used in the rescue operation were grounded because of severe flooding in the region.

The chairman of ONGC, Subir Raha told journalistists that: "Tens of thousands of barrels of production loss per day is expected." He was not prepared to comment on how the fire started. "We have not established the cause of accident as of now as there is heavy rains in Mumbai and high swells in the sea and the tide was high when the accident took place." Heavy monsoon rains have been wreaking havoc on land, disrupting transport and telecommunications.<!-- E BO -->


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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4721933.stm