Gerald Herbert / AP file

Damage from an explosion on an oil rig is seen in the Gulf of Mexico, about 25 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., on Nov. 16.

The Philippine Embassy said Monday that Philippine officials have been sent to Louisiana to help Filipino workers who were wounded in an explosion and fire last week at an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

The body of one of two missing Filipino workers was found Saturday and turned over to the Jefferson Parish coroner. He was identified on Monday as Ellroy Corporal, 42. The second man, identified as Jerome Malagapo, remains missing. Four people remain hospitalized.

The U.S. Coast Guard has called off its search for Malagapo, but Black Elk Energy, the Houston-based owner of the ill-fated platform, continued looking on its own.

“We know that it has been more than 48 hours but we Filipinos always believe in miracles and we continue to pray that our other kababayan (countryman) will be found alive,” Philippine Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. in Washington said on Sunday in a statement.

Cuisia said the remains of Corporal will be sent back to the Philippines after an autopsy. The envoy said he personally contacted Corporal’s widow, Mary Jean, in Iligan City, Philippines, to extend his sympathy and to offer assistance for her and her two children.

The embassy said Philippine consular officials are in Baton Rouge, La., to attend to Corporal’s remains and to look into how the Philippine government could assist the four Filipinos who were seriously burned in the accident.

Body found at scene of oil platform explosion in Gulf of Mexico

Two of the four remain in critical condition at Baton Rouge General Hospital’s burn unit while another is in serious condition, embassy officials said. The fourth, identified as Wilberto Ilagan, is conscious and in fair condition, according to Deputy Consul General Castro.

Ilagan, who suffered burns in 35 percent of his body, was earlier reported to have asked his doctors to inform his family in the Philippines that he is alive and well after he was earlier erroneously reported to have succumbed to injuries.

“To my relatives, to my family, and to my country, I am alive and in good health. I am burned, but my heart and lungs are healthy,” the 50-year-old Ilagan said in the message that was conveyed on his behalf by his doctors.

The missing and injured men were guest workers with Grand Isle Shipyard, an oilfield contracting company out of Galliano, La..

They were among nearly two dozen workers on the oil platform at the time of the explosion and fire.

Grand Isle Shipyard CEO Mark Pregeant said the cause of the explosion and fire isn’t known. He said initial reports that a welding torch was being used at the time of the incident or that an incorrect line was cut “are completely inaccurate."

The explosion is being investigated by the local, state and federal authorities. The fire was extinguished a few hours after the blast and Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told reporters that the platform appeared to be structurally sound.

Black Elk said no oil was leaking from the charred platform, which hadn't been operating since August.

NBC News' James Eng and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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ULUGAN BAY, Philippines - Hundreds of American and Philippine troops waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island in energy-rich waters disputed with China, a drill Beijing had said would raise the risk of armed conflict.

The exercises, part of annual U.S.-Philippine war games on the western island of Palawan, coincide with another standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal in a different part of the South China Sea.

China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan across the South China Sea, each searching for gas and oil while building up their navies and military alliances.

China said last week the drill would raise the risk of confrontation. On Wednesday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said China was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the dispute.

"We are certainly worried about the South China Sea issue," Cui told a news briefing in Beijing, saying "some people tried to mix two unrelated things, territorial sovereignty and freedom of navigation."

Historical records
The comments come before high-level talks with the Obama administration. China, which claims the South China Sea based on historical records, has sought to resolve disputes bilaterally but its neighbors worry over what some see as growing Chinese assertiveness in its claims in the region.

"Location (of the drill) is irrelevant," Ensign Bryan Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Marines, told reporters.

"These exercises take place on a regular basis. This year it happens to be in Palawan. The planning for this took place months ago prior to any events that are currently in the headlines."

China, Russia begin naval war games

President Barack Obama has sought to reassure regional allies that Washington would serve as a counterbalance to China in the South China Sea, part of his campaign to "pivot" U.S. foreign policy towards Asia after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Philippine military officials sought to play down the exercise. Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban, military commander for the western Philippines, said the drill "simply means we want to work together, improve our skills."

Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

U.S. Marines and Filipino troops participate in a joint military exercise in Ulugan Bay on the western coast of the Philippines on Wednesday.

Sabban's area of command includes Reed Bank and the Spratlys, a group of 250 mostly uninhabitable islets spread over 165,000 sq miles west of Palawan.

The Spratlys are claimed entirely by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Huge oil reserves
Proven and undiscovered oil reserve estimates in the South China Sea range as high as 213 billion barrels of oil, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a 2008 report. That would surpass every country's proven oil reserves except Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, according to the BP Statistical Review.

A Philippine exploration firm, Philex Petroleum Corp, said on Tuesday its unit, Forum Energy Plc, had found more natural gas than expected around Reed Bank, where Chinese navy vessels tried to ram one of Forum Energy's survey ships last year.

The Philippines is due to open oil-and-gas exploration bids in Reed Bank on Friday.

NYT: Signs of an Asian arms buildup in India missile test

Vietnam reasserted its claim to the Spratlys and the Paracel islands, known in Chinese as the Xisha islands, further west of Scarborough Shoal in what it calls the East Sea.

Self-ruled Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, reiterated its claims over territories in the South China Sea and urged "countries concerned to exercise self-restraint so that peaceful resolutions can be reached through consultation".

Sabban said the military drill was not focused on China.

"Never was China ever mentioned in our planning and execution," he told reporters. "China should not be worried about Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises."

Amphibious assault
Nearly 7,000 American and Philippine troops were launched from U.S. and Philippine ships in the simulated amphibious assault to recapture an island supposedly taken by militants.

Commandos came ashore from U.S. and Philippine ships in a simulated amphibious assault to recapture an island supposedly taken by militants.

Jumping from rubber boats as they hit the shore, the commandos engaged in a mock firefight, making their way inch by inch from the beach to a navy facility to rescue "hostages" and recapture the base.

Read more China coverage on our Behind The Wall blog

Four days ago, commando teams rappelled from U.S. helicopters and landed from rubber boats in a mock assault to retake an oil rig in northern Palawan, 11 miles off the town of El Nido on the South China Sea.

The annual war games come under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, part of a web of security alliances the United States built in the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War.

The drills are a rehearsal of a mutual defense plan by the two allies to repel any aggression in the Philippines.

Hundreds of kilometers to the north, a Philippine coast guard ship patrols near Scarborough Shoal, a group of half-submerged rock formations 124 nautical miles west of the Philippines' main island of Luzon.

Philippine and Chinese ships are often in the same areas of the South China Sea, with two Chinese maritime surveillance ships a few miles away from the coast guard vessel and five Chinese fishing boats working the waters nearby.

AP

Kevin Lunsman, a kidnapped American teenager, talks to Filipino soldiers inside the Philippine military compound in the southern Philippines following his escape from suspected al-Qaida-linked militants over the weekend.

The father of an American teenager who escaped his kidnappers in the southern Philippine jungle over the weekend called his son a "hero" on Sunday.

"I'm so proud of my son, he's a hero, he wandered two days through the jungle," Heiko Lunsmann told ABC affiliate WSET in Lynchburg, Va., on Sunday.

Kevin Lunsmann, 14, escaped from suspected al-Qaida-linked militants and wandered without shoes for two days in the jungle before villagers found him, ending his five-month captivity, officials said Sunday.

"That was a tough time, it was tough five months," Heiko Lunsmann said in the first interview since his 14-year-old Kevin was taken. "I only know he is a hero and I'm so happy he escaped."

Initial reports indicated that Kevin Lunsmann had been released, but the teen told Philippine officials and his family that he evaded his four armed captors by telling them that he would take a bath in a stream and then dashing for freedom on Friday.

He followed a river down a mountain until villagers found him late the next day, local officials said according to The Associated Press.  Exhausted, hungry and still stunned, the boy initially fled from the villagers, local officials told The Associated Press.

"He was in fear so there was a bit of a chase before the villagers convinced him that they were friends," Senior Supt. Edwin de Ocampo said told The Associated Press. He said the boy was fine, but was exhausted and had bruises on his arms and feet.

City Mayor Celso Lobregat said he has been flown to Manila and turned over to U.S. officials there. U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas said the boy would be reunited with his family soon.

• 2 kidnapped Americans allowed to talk to family

Lobregat said the boy has talked by phone with his Filipino-American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, who was in the United States. He, his mother and a Filipino cousin were vacationing with relatives on an island near Zamboanga City when they were snatched July 12 and taken by boat to nearby Basilan.

The captors then called the family in Campbell County, Virginia, to demand a ransom, officials said.

The mother was freed two months ago after she was dropped off by boat at a wharf on Basilan. The boy's Filipino cousin escaped from their captors last month when Filipino army forces managed to get near an Abu Sayyaf camp in the mountains of Basilan, about 550 miles south of Manila.

Army Col. Ricardo Visaya said the kidnappers were believed led by Abu Sayyaf militant Puruji Indama, who is notorious for ransom kidnappings and beheadings. Troops were hunting down the militants and clashed with one group in Akbar town, near Lamitan, which may have distracted the kidnappers and gave Lunsmann a chance to flee, he said.

When Visaya asked the boy if he was freed, which would indicate that ransom was paid, or escaped, Lunsmann replied that he fled from his captors.

"No, I really did it myself," he quoted Lunsmann as telling him. Visaya said he later handed the boy to American troops based in Basilan.

Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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