17.04.2008

Cable break kills offshore worker

A contract worker, Evandro Pereira Dias, 34, died on Saturday after he was crushed by steel basket that fell on him from a crane after a cable sling broke.

Dias was employed by Brazil’s state energy company, Petrobras, on the drilling platform P-17, which is anchored some 140 kilometers (87 miles) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state in the Campos basin, where over 70 percent of Brazil's oil is pumped. He had worked for the company for more than nine years.

The FUP, Petrobras's largest union, has been protesting against safety issues at Petrobras, drawing attention to the company’s poor safety reputation that it claims has resulted in the deaths of nearly 265 employees since 1995.

Despite being a contract employee, the 34-year-old Pereira Dias had worked for nine years as an assistant on the P-17 offshore platform.