The Morecambe Bay cockling disaster occurred on the evening of 5 February 2004 at Morecambe Bay in North West England , when at least 21 cockle pickers were drowned by an incoming tide off the Lancashire / Cumbrian coast. A group of Chinese workers, who were collecting cockles at low tide on sand flats at Warton Sands, near Hest Bank , and who were to have been paid 5 per 25 kg of cockles, Although the emergency services were alerted by a mobile phone call made by one of the workers, only one worker was rescued from the waters.