At least 10 people died and another 12 or 13 remain missing after a shipping accident in northeast China's Liaoning Province in May. The original reports said there had been no casualties at all, The Beijing News reported.

It remains unclear who covered up the incident in Donggang City on May 11, but the report said a fisherman who had appealed to the local government asking for legal investigation had been taken into custody for 10 days and fined 500 yuan (US$73).

According to the Xinhua news agency report at the time, all 19 crew members were rescued by nearby ships after the vessel "Liaodongyun 396" sank about 35 nautical miles from a port in Donggang that morning.

However, a man identifying himself as "Sun Bo" began phoning senior government officials including the Donggang Party secretary and the public security bureau director, claiming relatives had died in the accident and demanding an investigation.

The next morning the caller, whose real name was Liu Yubo, was taken away by police and detained for 10 days for lying about the death of his relatives.

"I used a pseudonym for fear of revenge. I lied that my relatives had died in the hope that the local government would conduct a thorough investigation," Liu told the newspaper. "It was unrealistic that nobody had died in that accident."

Shortly afterward 11 families who could not find their relatives started to appeal to the local government and after continuous approaches by the families a special Liaoning government investigation team arrived in Donggang in August. The sunken ship was raised and 10 bodies were discovered in the wreck. However, several other families still reported members missing, the newspaper said.

An Youxia was one. Her husband Sun Changhe went out on the ship to fish but never returned.

Another wife Sui Mingbo identified her husband Lin Shicai among the bodies. "But we were ordered to cremate the body within five days or we would have had to pay the funeral fees ourselves," Sui said.

The victim families who have found their relatives' bodies were given compensation payments ranging from 20,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan. An also received a compensation payment of 150,000 yuan though her husband was still missing.

(Shanghai Daily November 29, 2008)