Five workers are missing after an explosion on Monday at an oil and gas drilling rig in Oklahoma, officials have said.
Pittsburgh County Sheriff Chris Morris said at a news conference that it wasn’t clear what caused the fire, which authorities were notified of at 8:45 a.m. (9:45 a.m. ET), according to NBC report.
The blast occurred outside Quinton, about 70 miles from the Arkansas state line, Morris said. The five unidentified workers were among 22 people working at the site, he said.
“Seventeen came out, fiive are unaccounted for,” the news media quoted Morris as saying.
One of the workers who escaped was medivacked to a hospital to be treated for burns, said Pittsburg County Emergency Management Director Kevin Enloe.
The drilling rig belonged to Houston-based Patterson-UTI Energy, which said in a statement that it had activated emergency response systems and was cooperating with first responders and authorities at the scene. Latest report says the fire is now out.
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