A 53-year-old company director died early yesterday morning when he got caught in the open doorway of a service lift and was crushed as the lift rose into the floor above at a Lija store.

In another freak accident, a 69-year-old woman was run over by a reversing van when she accident-ally fell in Żurrieq, the police said in a statement.

The Lija accident occurred at about 6.15 a.m. when Alfred Mizzi, of Marsascala, was preparing to load drinks into delivery trucks.

Mr Mizzi, one of the directors of a beverage import company, went into the basement store to load the fork lifter with drinks and then take them up to the ground floor, by lift, where the trucks were parked.

The service lift, which is large enough to take the fork lifter with the load of drinks, is more like a moving platform that travels through the floors of the shop and is open on one side.

Mr Mizzi, who was married and had two sons, had driven the fork lifter onto the lift and stood beside it as it travelled upward. For some reason he fell to the open side of the platform and was crushed as the lift reached the ground floor, dying on the spot.

CCTV cameras in the building have captured the accident, sources said.

In the other accident, just over an hour later, the 69-year-old woman from Żurrieq was walking in Mattia Preti Square when she slipped.

In a tragic turn of events, a van driven by a 64-year-old man was at that time reversing and ran her over. The woman was rushed to hospital by ambulance where she eventually died from her injuries.

Magisterial inquiries were held into both accidents that are being further investigated by police.