On Wednesday evening, six members of the Haiying Retrieval Team arrived at Kunyu River in Haidian district at around 6 pm. About four hours previously, two young men had drowned in the river while swimming.

The body of one man was retrieved by another swimmer, but the other body was not recovered, so the police called in the Haiying Retrieval Team to try and find it.

One of the team's divers entered the water. Ten minutes later, he located the body and brought it to the surface. This was the 12th body the team had recovered since June.

In 2004, the Beijing police decided not to retrieve bodies from the water except in criminal cases. Since then, the job has been undertaken by private groups of divers. Haiying Retrieval Team is one of them.

Zhang Feng, a deputy of the Beijing municipal people's congress, told METRO that those involved in retrieving bodies are mainly professional divers, and some divers and diving groups have regular cooperation with the police. When a drowning occurs, the police call them to retrieve the body.

However, the private divers usually require remuneration for retrieving the bodies and many disputes have arisen.

The most common disputes are over the amount of remuneration. Relatives of the victims have to pay for the divers, and there is no set standard on how much they should pay. Hence, relatives and divers have to agree on the remuneration.

Some divers have used the opportunity to ask for very high remuneration, such as 10,000 yuan from relatives, or to demand money first and then retrieve the body. On a few occasions, divers have refused to retrieve the body, or even release the body, because no agreement has been reached with relatives.

Cui Jie, founder of the Haiying Retrieval Team, and a professional diver who has retrieved numerous bodies from the water since 2004, said he thought it was heartless to ask for money first from the relatives. He usually asks for 5,000 yuan after recovering a body.

But he said he had also met many relatives who refused to give remuneration after the body was returned to the family.

"Some relatives promised to pay. But when the bodies were retrieved they went back on their promise," he said.

To resolve such issues, Zhang suggested that retrieving bodies should become a public service. He said the local government should establish regulations and help private groups to become more standardized and the authorities should also provide facilities and subsidies to the divers who undertake the retrievals, he suggested. In this way, the relatives of the victims wouldn't have to pay the divers out of their own pockets.

"It is not a big amount of money, " he said.

Hu Jingyu, a diving coach with the Lantian Rescue Team, a voluntary group, told METRO that the police or fire brigades in many foreign countries have specialized teams to rescue the drowned or retrieve the bodies.

He is training divers from the fire brigades of a few provinces, and the Beijing fire brigade has contacted him for training, too.

Hu thought private rescue teams are very strong and can assist the local government in water rescues or body retrieval.

But he added: "They cannot replace the authorities."