Search on for Filipino oil rig worker

MANILA, Philippines—Search-and-rescue efforts were begun to find a Filipino oil worker who fell off an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico last Sunday evening, the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC, said Tuesday.

Welder Peter Jorge Voces, 38, accidentally fell off an oil rig in Vermillion Block 200 off the coast of Louisiana, 88.5 kilometers south of Freshwater Bayou, between Lake Charles and Baton Rouge.

The incident occurred 248 km from the site of an oil rig blast that killed three Filipino workers and injured three others almost a year ago.

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

A report from the US Coast Guard’s New Orleans sector said Voces fell off the platform at around 7:30 p.m. CDT (Louisiana time).

The Coast Guard immediately began an aerial-and-sea search, deploying two cutters, two helicopters and two airplanes. Six civilian offshore vessels assisted them.

The embassy said the Filipino was deployed to the oil rig through Offshore Specialty Fabricators, a firm based in Houma, Louisiana.

The embassy said Voces’ family has been told what happened. Officials at the consulate in Chicago were also in touch with US authorities as the search continued.