This is the shocking moment a woman falls to her death from the 27th floor of a high-rise block as she loses her balance while taking a selfie.

The 27-year-old, named locally as Sandra Manuela Da Costa Macedo, went over a balcony railing she was leaning against as she took the snap.

Sickening video footage showed her still holding the selfie stick as she plunged to the ground below.

An onlooker filming the tragedy shouted: 'She's mad, there she goes, look at her, look at her, she's fallen.'

The woman (white shirt) leans on the railings before attempting to take a selfie and falling

Paramedics rushed to the scene, a building called the Luxor Tower in a popular neighbourhood of Panama City called El Cangrejo after the alarm was raised just after 10 am local time yesterday.

The woman, initially identified as a Portuguese holidaymaker who had just arrived in Panama although a woman describing herself as a friend later took to social media to say she was a mother-of-two who had gone to the country to work as a teacher, was already dead when they arrived.

Construction workers on a neighbouring tower block are said to have yelled at her to get down from the railing she was half-sat on before her death plunge, but strong winds blowing at the time meant she couldn't hear their warning cries.

The Portuguese woman plummeted 27 floors and was pronounced dead on arrival of medics

Local reports said the incident was still under investigation, but police were focussing on the theory that a gust of wind may have knocked her off balance.

Panama's Fire Service published a warning on its official Twitter site after the tragedy which said: 'Don't risk your life for a selfie. It's more important to lose a minute in life than your life in a minute.'

A Portuguese friend wrote on Instagram: 'This woman was a very good friend of mine, a mother of two children. She was a teacher and she was in Panama to work in her chosen profession.

The Luxor Tower in a popular neighbourhood of Panama City called El Cangrejo

'She was Portuguese and called Sandra. Let's pray for her.'

Another replied: 'It's sad to see a person like that, so full of life and wanting to look beautiful in a photo but not realising the place she's in is dangerous because of the wind.'

A recent study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi found 259 people died while attempting to take a selfie between October 2011 and November 2017.

Findings were published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.

The study said more than 72 percent of the deaths were men, and drowning was the most common cause of death during a selfie-taking attempt.