Pinoy worker missing after falling off US oil platform

MANILA, Philippines - A 38-year-old Filipino offshore oil worker is missing after he accidentally fell into the Gulf of Mexico while working at an oil platform Sunday night, an embassy report said yesterday.

The Philippine embassy in Washington said Peter Jorge Voces is now the subject of a search and rescue operation by the United States Coast Guard involving two cutters, two helicopters, two fixed-wing aircraft and six civilian offshore supply vessels.

“We have been assured by the US Coast Guard that they are searching aggressively for our missing kababayan,” Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr. said. “We hope and pray that they will find him tomorrow.”

Cuisia said Voces is a registered overseas worker hired by Offshore Specialty Fabricators based in Houma, Louisiana.

The accident happened almost a year after three Filipino oil workers died and three others were seriously injured in an explosion at another offshore oil platform, also off the coast of Louisiana.

Lt. Steve Arguelles of the US Coast Guard Sector New Orleans told the embassy that the accident site is located at Vermillion Block 200, some 55 miles south of Freshwater Bayou between Lake Charles and Baton Rouge and is 154 miles from last year’s accident site.

The embassy and the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago will continue to coordinate with authorities.