The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was longer and wider than a football field. It sits at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, after explosions shattered the platform and killed 11 people on April 20.

Then the oil and natural gas began to flow. BP doesn't know how to stop this :

,,,,one intense kick of natural gas caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to be shut down because of the fear of an explosion just weeks before a similar release succeeded in destroying and sinking the platform and sent millions of gallons of oil on a collision course with Louisiana and the rest of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The hole from which tens of thousands of barrels of oil now geysers reaches 30,000 feet down into the Earth's crust. They can only make educated guesses about what's down there, or what's coming up the pipe.



From NOLA :

Shortly before the accident, engineers argued about whether to remove heavy drilling mud that acted as a last defense against such catastrophic kicks, and the decision to replace the mud with much lighter seawater won out.

...(frozen natural gas) slush forced its way to the rig, shot 240 feet in the air and heated into a gas that quickly ignited into fireballs....Among those tossed asunder by the explosions were BP officials who were on the rig to celebrate a seven-year spotless safety record.

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