Explosion reignites fears in Gulf

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: Now to the other story we're following tonight. Hard to believe there's been another explosion and fire on board another offshore Louisiana oil platform . This took place about 200 miles from that Deepwater Horizon rig, in much less water than that one, this one in just a few hundred feet, in the shallow end. Our own Anne Thompson in the gulf tonight, with us from Venice , Louisiana . Anne , good evening.

ANNE THOMPSON reporting: Good evening, Brian . A hundred-two miles off of Louisiana 's coast, a frightening sense of deja vu today as smoke once again rose from the gulf, this time from an oil platform owned by Mariner's Energy . It -- there were 13 workers on board at the time of the fire, which was spotted about 9:19 Central

time this morning. Those 19workers got into safety gear and jumped into the water. They were picked up by a supply ship and then taken to another oil platform , where they were transferred by helicopter to a Louisiana hospital. And we understand there were no serious injuries. Now, this oil platform was not in production at the time of the fire, and the Coast Guard says that earlier reports of a sheen emanating from that platform were erroneous. They see no signs of a sheen or a leak coming from that platform, and that certainly is good news. The fire is out at this hour. No one is quite sure what caused it. To give you some sense of perspective, this platform produced 1400 barrels of oil a day, which is absolutely dwarfed by what flowed out of BP 's Macondo well, as much as 62,000 barrels a day. There was work on that well today. The crews removed the capping stack. That was the temporary cap that stopped the oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico seven weeks ago. They are now starting to -- they are now preparing to remove the blowout preventer. That's that giant emergency brake which failed on April 20th . All of that is a prelude to finishing the relief well and killing the Macondo well from the

bottom with cement. Brian: All right, Anne Thompson . The good news headline from there today, though, all 13 workers accounted for and rescued tonight.

WILLIAMS: