Morecambe Bay cockling disaster

The Morecambe Bay cockling disaster occurred on the evening of 5 February 2004 at Morecambe Bay in North West England, when at least 21 Chinese illegal immigrant labourers were drowned by an incoming tide after picking cockles off the Lancashire coast.
David Anthony Eden, Sr., and David Anthony Eden, Jr., a father and son from England, had allegedly arranged to pay a group of Chinese workers £5 per 25 kg of cockles. The workers had been trafficked via containers into Liverpool, and were hired out through local criminal agents of international Chinese Triads. The cockles to be collected are best found at low tide on sand flats at Warton Sands, near Hest Bank. Some 30 cockle pickers set out at 4pm. The favoured area for cockle picking is close to the low tide line near the confluence of the Keer Channel and the Kent Channel, approximately 3.5 kilometres north of Morecambe. The Chinese workers were unfamiliar with local geography, language, and custom. They were cut off by the incoming tide in the bay around 9:30 p.m.

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