Police in Yichun City of Heilongjiang Province have apologized for detaining four journalists reporting Tuesday's jet crash at the city's airport which left 42 people dead and 54 injured.

Three reporters and a photographer were seized on Saturday near a funeral home in Yichun, Beijing News reported yesterday, where some victims' bodies were believed to have been taken.

A photographer from the Shenyang-based Huashang Morning Post, Wang Shuntian, was the first to be taken into custody.

Wang Nan, a reporter with Beijing-based Legal Evening News, was also led away by police.

A male reporter from China Business News and a woman reporter from the Legal Evening News were also detained.

Other journalists at the scene, from more than a dozen domestic news organizations, protested and demanded an explanation from the local public security bureau.

Five hours later, Yichun city officials issued an apology while the head of Yichun's publicity department, Hua Jingwei, said he had been instructed to tell journalists to stay away from the funeral home but had failed to notify them in time. A senior police officer expressed his personal apology to journalists offended by officers' behavior.