A man, a woman and a child have died after falling from a high-rise block of flats in south London, the Metropolitan police said.

Scotland Yard said officers were called at 7.29am on Wednesday to reports that people had fallen from a height in Elephant and Castle.

The three people had died at the scene despite attempts to resuscitate them and the deaths were being treated as “unexpected”, the force said.

A London ambulance service spokesperson said:

“We sent a number of resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, a paramedic in a fast-response car, an incident response officer and paramedics from our hazardous area response team (Hart). We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s air ambulance.

“Our first paramedic arrived in around four minutes. Very sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, three people were pronounced dead at the scene.”