A Chinese seaweed farm owner in east China's Jiangsu Province has been detained by local
police after 19 of his workers were swept out to sea by a tide.
The accident occurred at 8:45 PM on April 15 on a seaweed farm
near coastal Hezao Village in Rudong County, when farm owner Liu
Songquan and 19 workers were collecting purple seaweed, local
police said.
It was late in the day and workers on other farms had already
stopped working for the day but Liu made his employees work on,
they said.
As they began to make their way back to the village, their two
tractors, under the weight of the heavy seaweed, bogged down in the
mud. Liu called in two more workers to help, but by that time the
tide had come in and the workers were swept away. None of them
managed to escape.
Local authorities mobilized thousands of people and hundreds of
tractors and boats to search for the missing workers.
Only two men, including Liu, were rescued.
The bodies of three men and 16 women were later recovered from
the sea.
(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2007)