Mexico ? Workers were still battling a nightmarish combination of gas and crude leaks, fires and oil slicks at a damaged Gulf oil platform on Wednesday, almost a month after it was damaged in an accident that killed at least 21, an official said.

Since the Oct. 23 accident, the damaged platform has experienced bad weather and at least three fires.

A constant cloud of toxic gas not only has prevented crews from carrying out repairs, but it catches fire so easily that six firefighting boats are pumping thousands of tons of sea water over the platform to cool the metal and extinguish fires, the state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, has reported.

On Tuesday, crews briefly extinguished the latest blaze at the Kab 121 platform, 20 miles from the port of Dos Bocas, only to see it re-ignite, said a Pemex representative who was not authorized to be quoted by name. It was still burning Wednesday.

Pemex says the platform has been spilling an average of about 430 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico – almost 13,000 barrels to date – and its crews have been trying to recover the spilled oil.