In a sight like something out of Lord of the Rings, an underwater pipeline sparked leak sparked a giant ring of flames that erupted on the ocean’s surface in the Gulf of Mexico, near the coast of Cuidad del Carmen, Mexico.
According to Mexican state oil company Pemex, it took more than five hours to fully contain the bright orange fire west of the Yucatan Peninsula, which broke out near a Pemex oil platform but fortunately has caused no injuries.
The pipeline connects to Pemex’s flagship Ku Maloob Zaap oil development – the county’s most important – that is producing 726,000 barrels of oil per day.
As stunning aerial footage of the “eye of fire” went viral, New York Post reports that the sight has set social media ablaze. The inferno, which resembled molten lava swirling on the water, was subdued by company workers using nitrogen.
Angel Carrizales, head of Mexico’s oil safety regulator ASEA, wrote on Twitter in Spanish that the incident did not generate any spill, but did not explain what was burning on the water’s surface, informing instead that an internal investigation into the cause of the fire is underway.
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