Another two people were arrested Monday in links with the deaths of at least 19 cockle pickers, including several Chinese, in a northwest England bay, police told Xinhua.  

The pair, both of them male and not on the list of the survivors, were arrested in Lancashire on Monday afternoon, said Andrew Bradbury, a press officer with Lancashire Police. Their nationalities were not immediately known.

Three men and two women, who had been originally listed by police as survivors, were arrested Sunday night on suspicion of manslaughter, police said.

"The three men and two women in question were among the group originally described by us as survivors," said a spokesman for Lancashire Police earlier Monday.

"We now believe that those we are questioning and are in custody work within the cockling industry," he said.

Lancashire Detective Chief Inspector Mick Gradwell said the arrests were part of an ongoing inquiry with more searches of addresses expected in coming days.

Police in Merseyside, also in northwest England, were in the process of executing more than 10 search warrants in the area, according to a Sky News report.

Cradwell said many of the dead may have been in the country only a couple of months and were "living in appalling conditions." He said he had found up to 40 people living in four or five-bedroom houses, with mattresses on the floor, no heating and little food.

Only 16 people, two Europeans and 14 Chinese, survived when the group was caught in fast-rising tides in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, on Thursday night. The police believe they were being exploited by illegal "gangmasters" to pick cockles.

The tragedy reflected the importance of the steps that "have to be taken to protect these people from the risks they are forced to take to work in this country," British Home Secretary David Blunkett told the Guardian newspaper Monday.

Cockling was suspended following the tragedy and it remains unclear over whether it should be allowed to resume as planned on Tuesday morning.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2004)