Gabon's authorities have reported that the number of fatalities from the sinking of an oil platform off its coast last Saturday has risen to three, after search and rescue teams located their lifeless bodies trapped in the submerged structure.
The Chief of Staff of the Gabonese Navy, Charles Hubert Bekale Meyong, explained in a statement released by public television that, for now, the bodies of three of the five people who remained missing have been found thanks to the intervention of an underwater robot. Recovery work continues and search tasks remain active in the area of the disaster.
"To date, 110 people have been rescued by the naval and air assets of the Defense and Security Forces," he has noted, before emphasizing that "the teams remain fully mobilized to locate the other two people" and highlighting that what happened on the oil platform is under investigation by the Prosecutor's Office since October 25.
The Prospector 5 platform, belonging to the company Borr Drilling and operated by BW Energy Gabon SA, went down on Saturday off the coast of the province of Nyanga, in the southwest of the country. After the sinking, the Gabonese president, Brice Oligui Nguema, expressed his "deep emotion" over the "accident" and ordered the mobilization of "all the means of the State" to reinforce search and rescue operations.