A heartbroken mother has spoken of the agony of watching her seven-year-old daughter being crushed to death by a tree on a birthday party picnic.

Horrified Gislene Silva Tiburcio Fermino had just handed her daughter Isabela a glass of water when she heard a crack and saw the giant eucalyptus fall on her.

The family were under the tree as they celebrated her cousin Manu’s party at Lagoa do Taquaral park in the city of Campinas, in the state of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, on 24th January.

Gislene said: “As I just handed her the water, I heard some very loud cracks and I already identified that they were from that tree.

“I didn’t even look at anything, I just saw Manu by my side, I stuck to her arm. Manu, and Manu looking back, me pulling and running and running.

“It was a very loud noise, you don’t know if you’re running to the right place.”

After avoiding the falling eucalyptus tree, Gislene started looking for her daughter and found her under the tree.

She said: “When the noise stopped, when I knew the tree had fallen, I looked back.

“Then I started calling my daughter, I started screaming, ‘Isabela, Isabela’ from the other side of the tree.”

She added: “At last, I look over there, and I see her under the tree. Then a nurse arrived, the nurse started to do a cardiac massage on her.

“I looked and realised that she wasn’t feeling anything.”

Now Gislene plans to remember her daughter by publishing a series of poems she wrote.

She said: “She had a notebook with 21 poems that she wrote.

“I told her: ‘Daughter, if you keep writing, mom will find a way to publish this for you’.

“And she got excited and wrote each time. I want to keep that promise I made to her.”