Hunt for gangmasters in drownings
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A victim's body is carried to an ambulance at Morecambe Bay.
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LONDON, England -- Nineteen people who were killed by swift tides as they gathered shellfish in a treacherous English bay were probably the victims of work-gang operators, police said.
The dead, 17 men and two women, were among a group of workers -- almost all believed to be Chinese nationals -- harvesting cockles in Morecambe Bay in Lancashire, northwestern England.
The workers may have been brought to the treacherous, bitterly cold bay from the Liverpool area, about 40 miles (64 km) south, Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell of the Lancashire police said Saturday.
"I can't confirm it, but it does appear that gangmasters would be involved in arranging this particular cockle-picking event," Gradwell told a news conference. "I am very anxious to speak to those people."
Police do not yet know who employed the workers, he said. Some work gangs are licensed and legal, while others, he said, exploit desperate immigrants.
"These are tragic events and the fact that vulnerable people are being used to work in these circumstances, physically hard, for about a pound ($1.80) for a full nine-hour shift I just think is appalling," Gradwell said.
If the work gang involved was illegal, organizers could be arrested within days, he added.
Gradwell said he was setting up a commission to handle the "mammoth and ... very difficult task" of identifying the dead.
Lancashire Assistant Chief Constable Julia Hodson earlier pledged to bring criminal charges against anyone found to be responsible for the deaths.
"These are what a coroner would view as suspicious deaths," she said, adding that possible charges could range from licensing violations to murder.
Morecambe Bay has notoriously dangerous tides and sands.
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Hodson said police and interpreters were interviewing 16 survivors, among them 14 Chinese nationals and two Britons.
She said nine of the survivors requested asylum before the accident and four of them have asked for it since.
The workers were searching for cockles -- a shellfish delicacy that lives just below the surface of muddy sand -- on Thursday evening when fast-rising, ice-cold waters cut them off from the shore at the notoriously dangerous Morecambe Bay.
Hodson noted that local people and licensed cockle-gatherers had worked at the bay for years with few problems.
"I think it might be something unique about the circumstances of this particular group of people that made them take risks that other people wouldn't take," she said.
She didn't elaborate, but Home Office minister Beverley Hughes said Friday the workers were probably victims of organized international people-traffickers who smuggle migrants to exploit them as cheap labor.
Commander Harry Roberts of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, described the deaths as a "tragedy waiting to happen."
Roberts said none of the victims had any safety gear and that many had stripped naked as they tried to swim to safety.
He said gangs of immigrants often traveled to the area to harvest the shellfish, with up to 500 people a day picking cockles.
The Right Rev. Patrick O'Donoghue, Catholic bishop of Lancaster, urged the government to require that all work-gang organizers be licensed and regulated.
"This appalling tragedy raises fundamental questions about whether or not we are providing enough protection to these migrant workers who contribute enormously to our economy and our welfare," he said.
