A full-scale rescue operation was launched today after a group of cocklers became stranded in Morecambe Bay, only hours after a memorial service for 19 mainly Chinese workers who died there last week.
The group of 30 to 40 cockle-pickers was quickly rescued but not before the coastguard had scrambled the lifeboat hovercraft to pluck them from the dangerous bay in northwest England.
"A full scale rescue operation was launched from the lifeboat centre in Morecambe after a tractor pulling a trailer with cockle-pickers became stranded on the bay," a Lancashire police spokeswoman said.
"They have now been pulled to safety and the people on the trailer are all safe and well." The group were all said to be locals.
The incident came less than two hours after a service was held to remember the 17 men and two women who drowned when they were caught by fast-rising tides as they collected cockles in Morecambe Bay a week ago.
Three local Buddhist monks staged the service, chanting prayers for more than an hour at a small shrine on the beach before walking along the sea front, splashing water towards the scene where the workers died. They were joined by around 100 locals and members of the Chinese community.
Yesterday, police released five people, all survivors of last week's tragedy, who had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the deaths of the cockle-gatherers.
Two women were released on bail to reappear before police in April and three men were handed over to immigration services. Two other men were released on bail on Tuesday night.
The deaths have focused attention in Britain on gang labour, where so-called gangmasters use migrant labourers, often illegally, to do poorly paid jobs in agriculture and unskilled industrial work such as in the building trade.