A COUPLE and their 12-year-old daughter have died in their Alicante city home after hundreds of kilos of clothing fell on top of them at once.
The victims, a Spaniard of 50 and his Moroccan wife, 49, had been stockpiling the clothing in order to sell it second-hand.
They had stored it on floor-to-ceiling shelves fitted to every wall in their first-floor apartment of the four-storey block at number 141 of the Avenida Alcoy.
Their bodies, and those of their daughter, aged 12, were discovered by the latter's elder sister, 18, who was in the next room.
Although the fatal accident is thought to have happened between 08.00 and 09.00 on Saturday morning, the elder daughter did not find out about the tragedy until she got up at around 13.00 or 14.00, having not gone to bed until the early hours as she had been surfing the internet all night.
Seeing the contents of the shelves heaped up, the young woman started to move the items of clothing, but when she saw her little sister's arm, she panicked and rang her uncle.
Her uncle contacted the police, who unearthed the young woman's sister and parents, all of whom were dead.
A post-mortem is due to be carried out, although initially it is thought the three suffocated due to the weight of the clothing on top of them and the lack of air-flow.
A MAN declared dead at his home in the province of Tarragona was on his way to the funeral parlour when he turned out to be alive, according to police sources.
A NEW child protection law named after a British musician living in Spain has been approved in Congress and is set to be signed off by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, June 8.
