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Oil rig fire breaks out in Texas; trapped workers rescued

An oil rig caught fire in Port Arthur, TX on Thursday. (Courtesy NBC News)

SABINE PASS, Texas – A fire aboard a decommissioned offshore oil rig platform briefly trapped nine shipyard workers Thursday until they were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter.

The fire broke out shortly before 1 p.m. at a shipyard in Sabine Pass, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Dickinson told The Associated Press. Sabine Pass is where the Texas-Louisiana border meets the Gulf of Mexico.

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Video from KBMT-TV in nearby Beaumont showed the Coast Guard helicopter shuttling between the burning platform to another platform nearby, plucking the trapped workers from danger.

No workers were injured and the cause of the fire was being investigated, Dickinson said.


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