‘For 4 hours in the black waters, I just prayed’

Custard Fernandes, a cook, said he did not think he would live when he dived into the sea.

‘‘Five hours in water was hell. There were 150 of us. I saw one of our senior colleagues sink in front of me. He probably had a heart attack and we couldn’t help. It was cold. But all I kept thinking of was not to give up, not even when I felt some fish nibbling my toe,’’ said Fernandes.

Mehraj Ahmed, a radio officer with the Oil Tern, a service providing vessel to Bombay High platforms, recalls how they heard the sound of the collision just after dropping supplies off the BHN, about 500 metres away, and turned back on a rescue mission.

‘‘It was like the sky had lit up suddenly. We went back immediately. The rescue operations lasted from 5 in the evening to midnight. Even as the weather spiralled worsened, we managed to rescue 54 people,’’ said Ahmed.

As Oil Tern rescued workers, back home in Mumbai’s far-flung central suburb at Mira Road, Seema Borikar had just heard about the BHN blaze. Her husband, Nitin, worked as a junior technician on BHN.

‘‘I stayed up all night, just making calls to the ONGC helpline. Now, I have heard he is safe, I just want to see him. He will survive,’’ she said.

Then, as an aside, Seema added that she might not want him to return to his job.