A woman jumped to her death from the 148th floor of the World’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. 39-year-old Laura Vanessa Nunes fell 1604 feet from an observation deck landing on a restaurant terrace surface.
Nunes, who holds both Portuguese and South African citizenship, was reportedly heartbroken after her relationship with an Emirati businessman went sour. According to reports in the Daily Mail, the shocking incident happened in November last year but has apparently gone unreported in Dubai.
Her mother Leona Sykes is angered that Emaar, the property group behind the building, has refused repeated requests for information about her death
Leona Sykes, from South Africa, travelled to Dubai to seek answers because she can't believe how easily her daughter was able to leap from the major tourist attraction with supposed modern safety features.
She convinced Dubai police to show her the CCTV taken from the observation deck, despite the harrowing nature of the footage.
According to Ms Sykes, the video shows Nunes walk towards the viewing platform's glass security panels and put her head through a small gap designed to allow tourists to look out and take photographs.
She then rushes to the back of the observation deck, apparently in fear.
'I think she got a fright when she looked down. She was a panicky terrified young woman,' said a distraught Ms Sykes. 'She walked back to the pane of glass, turned around and looked up, maybe to get strength or to make a prayer.
'Then she put her head out, tilted her body and slipped through. And nobody noticed.’
According to an exclusive report in the Daily Mail, after falling 1,640ft, her body was found on the terrace of the 3rd floor Amal restaurant, part of the Armani hotel.
Sources in Dubai said the change had been made at the request of the Dubai police.
Ms Nunes, a qualified masseuse who was in Dubai on a tourist visa hoping to find work, is understood to have been distraught over an on-off relationship with a wealthy Emirati businessman.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the businessman.