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World's largest oil rig sinks in Atlantic

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, March 20 -- The world's largest offshore oil rig, which had been slipping into the sea since an explosion last week, dropped completely into the south Atlantic Tuesday morning, the Brazilian state-owned oil company that operated the rig said.

Technicians worked on Platform P-36 to try to contain some 400,000 gallons of oil on the rig from leaking into the ocean.

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According to the company, boats had been position to contain any spill. Company officials said the gas and oil wells had been sealed before the rig was evacuated, the on-line edition of Rio de Janeiro's Diario newspaper reported.

A series of explosions on the oil rig on Thursday resulted in the deaths of 10 people. More than 150 people were rescued off the platform after the blasts, which also damaged a support.

The rig, located some 75 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro in the Campos Basin of the Atlantic Ocean, was listing at about 30 degrees over the weekend as workers tried to shore it up by injecting nitrogen into rooms that had been flooded, and had dropped to more than 100 feet below the surface of the ocean.

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But the platform continued to sink slowly before it quickly went under Tuesday.

The P-36 oil rig, which was about 400 feet tall, was opened to operation last year and was pumping some 80,000 barrels of oil -- about 5 percent of Brazil's oil output -- a day. The area of the oil rich Camps Basin where the P-6 was anchored was more than 4,500 feet deep.

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