Azerbaijan is Mourning

SOCAR has published a list of missing people and those, who had been saved on its official webpage, though earlier, (on December 4) it stated that there had been 42 workers on the oil platform (on December 5) at the moment of the disaster. According to official data, 32 people have been rescued, 30 are missing (in total 62). 8 workers of total number of evacuated people from the platform were transported with burns, fractures, and hypothermia and brain concussion to the Oil Workers Central Hospital.

The official press was provided with details, told by eye-witnesses, only on December 6.

“A hurricane was blowing and an explosion occurred. We were ordered to evacuate. Being stifled with smoke, we were trying to approach the south boat. But we failed because of smoke and went to the north, where we took two boats and saved in this way, one of the workers, Rashid Guseinov recollected in the hospital. He has a brain concussion. “Out boats were lowered to the water, but the wind began striking another boat against our and people from that boat felt to the water. We thought we would die either.

President of Azerbaijan Ilkham Aliyev declared December 6 a mourning day. The President’s Decree ordered to cancel all entertaining events on this day, TV channels were recommended not to broadcast entertaining programs, and the country’s embassies were to lower flags.

Notwithstanding this order, music (classical) is broadcasted by Azerbaijani TV Channels and films-megahits are demonstrated.

Social networks were indignant with the fact the information had been concealed and were skeptic regarding results of the investigation. On December 5 many people were perplexed that the mourning had not been declared. The catastrophe on the oil platform was compared with other tragedies – a murder of students in the Azerbaijani State University of Oil and Industry several years ago, a fire in a residential building, causing death of 16 people in May of the current year.
According to oil engineer Dmitry, you should not be an oil worker at the oil-well derrick to face lethal risk in Azerbaijan. You can risk even when you are going to a doctor, driving a car, crossing a crosswalk, taking a dog for a stroll around a park or simply sleeping in the tiled building.

“A terrorist attack occurred in the Oil Academy, a seller of döners was detained. Plastic tiles caught fire in Binagadi, a head of the Housing Management Office was arrested. The oil platform in Guneshli caught fire. God, save poor workers! writes famous photo correspondent and blogger Turkhan Garishka.

Eldar Sultanov, the Spokesperson the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijani Republic stated that the oil platform caught fire when the “waves broke a support pipe of the underwater gas pipeline. At the same time, Fikret Mamedov, a member of management of the Ado-G Group of Companies, dealing with delivery of equipment for the oil industry, including to SOCAR, accused in his Facebook webpage the company of corruption. According to him, funds were economized at expense of the workers security on the oil platform, the near-by waters are not cleaned from waste metal objects, floating around it.