**An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that caught fire after an explosion on Tuesday has now sunk, the US coastguard has said.**The coastguard is still looking for 11 missing workers after the blast at the Deepwater Horizon rig.
There has been no sign of the group despite efforts by patrol boats through the night and an aerial search that resumed on Thursday.
The other workers on the rig, off Louisiana, were evacuated to the US.
The aerial search had resumed at dawn but there has been no sign of those missing.
Rescue teams hope the workers are in lifeboats.
“We still have reasonable probability that they are alive right now,” Petty Officer Casey Baker told AFP earlier on Thursday.
“We don’t plan to stop searching anytime soon,” he added.
Seventeen of the 126 workers were evacuated by air and sea on Wednesday. Another 100 were later rescued by boat.
On Wednesday the rig had reportedly been tilting about 70 degrees and was threatening to topple over.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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