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)