"Huge fireballs illuminated the early dawn skies of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday as an explosion and fire killed four people and injured as many as 16 others on a large oil platform in the southeastern Bay of Campeche, Mexican officials said.

At least eight fire boats battled the sheets of flame soaring high above the wreckage of the shallow-water Abkatun-Permanente platform in Campeche Sound. The platform’s chief function is to separate gas and oil before it is pumped to onshore refineries.

In a statement, Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, which owns the huge oil rig, said that there was no evidence of a major spill, but that the blast had forced the evacuation of more than 300 workers from the rig in seas off the southern state of Tabasco."

Paulina Villegas reports for the New York Times April 1, 2015. [2]