A British woman lay unconscious for nine hours by her dead husband's side after the pair fell into a gully that suddenly opened up near their home in Spain.
The expat was rescued when she came to after spending the night in the chasm on the Costa del Sol.
The woman was able to alert emergency services to her plight, but nothing could be done to save her 74-year-old husband, also British, who died after hitting his head on a stone in the seven-foot-deep hole.
The gully, which was originally thought to be a sinkhole, is believed to have been caused by a flood nearly 15 years ago which had had begun worsening.
But the local community in charge of the area had been refused permission to carry out repairs, according to local reports today.
The couple at the centre of the tragedy have not yet been named.
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They are understood to have fallen into the gully as they used a shortcut to head home on a residential estate called San Juan de Capistrano north of the town of Nerja on the eastern Costa del Sol.
Local reports said they had just returned from the town centre by bus and ordered a takeaway pizza and drinks at a bar by the bus stop before tragedy struck around 9pm on March 6.
The survivor was not able to raise the alarm until 6am the following day, according to details of the incident published by Malaga-based daily Diario Sur.
Barriers have been put up around the hole while a more permanent solution is found.
A local living on the same estate as the couple said: “The place where they fell is actually a gully which got worse after a flash flood in 2007.
“The flash flood washed away a walkway that was there.
“The regional government had given permission for its repair but the estate managers were waiting for a building permit from the town hall.
“It was taped off and residents knew they shouldn’t have gone along there but it’s very tempting as a short cut.”
Another local resident added: “They were walking into the gully on what was the pathway that was broken with the flooding.
“It was night-time and it had been raining.
“The woman and her husband had been living in the area for some time but they kept themselves very much to themselves.
“She is okay physically but obviously very distressed.
“Neighbours and friends are rallying round to support her and keep an eye on her.”
Last June a British expat died when he fell down an uncovered manhole in the holiday resort of Calahonda an hour’s drive west of Nerja.
Richie Kennedy, 39, died instantly from head injuries after tumbling down the hole but his body lay undiscovered for 15 hours.
The expat, originally from Brighton, East Sussex, had been walking home from seeing friends when he tripped and fell.
His distraught partner Claus Dueholm told last August how he had found his body.
The 56-year-old hotel worker said: “I called an ambulance and helped his stepdad jumping down into the 8ft deep hole but we couldn’t help him out of there until about two hours later.
“He was completely cold at this point, he had been lying there for more than 15 hours.
The police and the people from the ambulance couldn’t get to him, so it wasn’t until the fire brigade came with a ladder and they finally got him out.
