Supermarket workers have come under fire for covering a woman who died suddenly inside the store with a plastic sheet and allowing shopping to continue around her as normal.

The incident took place at the supermarket in the neighbourhood of Sao Conrado in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on the afternoon of Tuesday, 13th July.

After the woman collapsed inside the store, paramedics were called, but by the time they arrived on the scene, she had already died.

Firemen were called to remove the body and when they arrived on the scene, they identified the deceased woman as 60-year-old Evangelista Diamantina Argentina.

The firemen then took the corpse to the morgue of a local hospital for a post-mortem to determine the exact cause of death, which has not been revealed.

However, the store employees later came under fire when photos taken at the scene by shoppers before the emergency service workers arrived were posted to social media.

The snaps show shopping carrying on as normal around the dead body, which had been covered with a red plastic sheet and left in an aisle sealed off by overturned trolleys.

The supermarket responded to the criticisms by stating that the employees closed the store as soon as the customers who were already inside had finished paying for their goods and left.

The supermarket also said it had reached out to the deceased woman’s relatives, writing: “Every piece of assistance is being given to the family in carrying out the funeral.”