国际英语新闻：No oil leaking from U.S. sunken rig, search for 11 missing continues: official

HOUSTON, April 23 (Xinhua) -- There is no oil currently spilling from the sunken oil rig off the Louisiana coast, U.S. officials said Friday, easing earlier concerns over a massive environmental disaster.

"We've been able to determine there is nothing emanating from the well-head," Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said Friday morning in a TV interview.

"That being said, we have positioned resources to be ready to respond should a spill occur ... We will continue to monitor 24/7 for the next several days," Landry said.

At least 11 people were missing and 17 others were injured after the explosion which happened late Tuesday night at the Deepwater Horizon rig in Gulf of Mexico.

The rig, located at about 42 km southeast of Venice, Louisiana, sank in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 am Thursday after burning for roughly 36 hours.

Oil officials on Thursday warned of a major spill. "I think it could have the potential to be a major spill," said David Raine, vice president of BP, the company who had the rig under contract.

However, Landry said Friday that by using underwater remotely operated vehicles and sonar, the Coast Guard determined that the oil in the water , which spans about 5 miles long and a mile wide, was "residual from the explosion" and not the product of an opened well.

The Coast Guard launched vessels with "skimming" capabilities Thursday to help clean up that spill, she said.

Britain's oil giant, BP PLC, which leased the rig and took the lead in the cleanup, says it is using 32 vessels to mop up the current spill. Officials had estimated 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day could be leaking.

Meanwhile, the search continued for 11 workers missing after the explosion, though family members said they had been told the chance for their survival is dim.

Rescue teams scouring the wreckage site have found no signs of the 11 workers, said Landry. Coast Guard teams recovered two of the rig's lifeboats, but both were empty, she said.

There were 126 people aboard the semi-submerged drilling rig when it exploded. Most of them have escaped safely.

Family members of two missing workers filed lawsuits separately in New Orleans Thursday accusing Transocean and BP of negligence.

Built in 2001, the semi-submersible rig is owned by Houston- based Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, and has been under lease by BP since 2007. It was drilling but was not in production.