MUMBAI: "We swam for four-and-a-half hours in the sea before being rescued by the ship Neel Akash," says Binu George, an electrician onboard BHN, ONGC's offshore process platform, which sank on Wednesday evening after a major accident.

Mr. George battled the turbulent waters along with his young colleague, Rathish, who broke down after the ship brought them to Victoria Docks in South Mumbai on Thursday. . Since mid-morning, four ships brought in the many of the 355 survivors. Exhaustion mingled with relief showed on the faces of the men who had braved the fire and managed to survive using all the skills they had at hand.

Mr. George, still wearing his mauve overalls and barefoot, says that the multipurpose support vessel Samudra Suraksha, which was near BHN, hit the platform and a gas pipeline, which exploded. There was a fire on the boat too, which caught the gas turbine on the BHN, causing a conflagration. "We heard the explosion and ran to the connecting platform where there was a ladder to go down to the sea. We then swam away from the fire till we were picked up."

Manohar Koshe, a piping engineer says "I thought we would all drown. We did not seem to have a chance." Mr. Koshe saw the Samudra Suraksha swaying in the rough sea and then hitting the legs of the platform while the top portion of the vessel hit an oil pipeline.

The crude oil spilled out and caught fire, he said. All the people working on the platform immediately rushed across the connecting bridges to another platform where there were lifeboats. "I think the BHN went down in 15 minutes, it had no chance. We struggled in the life boats for about an hour and then we were on the sea." The ship Sea Tern, which saw the men in their lifeboats, picked him up sometime later.

He said there were over 50 lifeboats and it was enough for everyone. "The fire was so unexpected, we could never have imagined it. We just ran to save our lives. I saw many people jumping off the platform (30 to 35 metres high), in fact most of them just did that," he said.

O. P. Tiwari was having a cup of tea on BHN when the fire broke out. He jumped off a ladder into the sea at around 4.30 pm. "I wore a lifejacket which helped me float around till I was rescued at around nine pm," he said.

Many of the men had burn injuries on their hands and were administered first aid. Vijay Singh who was involved in the rescue operation on board Neel Akash, said that the sea was very rough and they started picking up people at around 5.30 pm on Wednesday.

Girish Gorde, a radio officer on BHN, burnt his hand but he managed to get into a lifeboat within five to ten minutes of the accident.

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