A 38-year-old Malaysian woman died from suffocation after being trapped in an overloaded lift at a hotel on the resort island of Penang, a report said Saturday.

The incident at the Paradise Sandy Bay Hotel occurred when 21 hotel guests squeezed into the lift on the third floor to get to the lobby, the New Straits Times reported.

The paper quotes a hotel spokesman, who declined to be identified, as saying that the guests ignored an alarm indicating overcrowding.

Excessive load

He said the lift stopped midway due to the excessive load. He declined to reveal how long the passengers were trapped there.

The victim, Marina Jaya, was found dead when workers prised open the lift's doors. Another passenger suffered a broken wrist in the incident.

Separately, the Malay-language Utusan Malaysia reported that a two-year-old boy suffocated to death after being left in his father's car for more than three hours in northeastern Kelantan state.

Mohamad Habibatul Hakimi Ramlan was found unconscious in the car by his mother. He is believed to have sneaked into the car without his family's knowledge, the paper said. - AFP