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There has been a search of the entire area and everyone involved has made strenuous efforts to find this missing cockler.

A night-time rescue operation was launched after one cockler, Guo Bing Long, called 999 and said: "Sinking water, many many, sinking water... Sinking water, sinking water."

Sinking Water, which takes its name from a cockler's emergency call on 5 February 2004, would "humanise" what happened, writer Daniel York said.

The body of a cockler has been found off the Wirral coast in Merseyside, the coastguard has confirmed.

The loud lunge of the sea was interrupted solely by the cry of the fisherman, and the "cockler's" whistle, plying his scanty trade among the shoals and sandbanks about the coast.