NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - The deaths of a father and two children who drowned in a swimming pool at a resort in southern Spain this week were "a tragic accident" that came about because none of the victims knew how to swim, authorities said on Friday (Dec 27).

The victims, including a nine-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, were tourists on a family vacation at a resort in Mijas, in the Costa del Sol.

The family's three children, including the two who died and a 14-year-old girl, had been bathing in the shallow end of a pool at about 1.30pm on Tuesday while their parents sunbathed, according to a statement by the Civil Guard, a Spanish police force.

The nine-year-old at some point moved into deeper water and could not get out.

Her brother, the 16-year-old, tried to help but then found himself also in trouble, prompting the father to jump in, the statement said.

None of the three could swim.

The father and daughter were British citizens and the teenage son was American, authorities said.

The five members of the family were said to have arrived at the resort, the Club La Costa World, on Sunday.

A church in Britain, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, said on Facebook that the victims included a pastor, Gabriel Diya, 52, who had worked at Open Heavens, a branch of the organisation in South London, along with one of his daughters, Comfort Diya, and his son, Praise-Emmanuel Diya.

The pastor's wife, however, has denied reports that they could not swim, suggesting instead that something was wrong with the resort's swimming pool, reported AFP. "The three of them knew how to swim," said Ms Olubunmi Diya in a statement published on Friday by the family's London-based church on Facebook, adding that the whole family was present when the incident happened.

"The children went into the pool using the steps but found themselves dragged into the middle, which was deeper and called for help when they could not get out," she said, describing how her husband then entered the water to help them.

Sources close to the Spanish investigation had earlier said that a surviving sister had told police that the three did not how to swim.

Jorge Martín, a spokesman for the civil guard in Spain, said by telephone on Friday that the water was about 2m deep at the pool's deepest point.

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An initial report that a resort employee who entered the pool during the episode had also struggled to get out suggested that there might have been a problem with the pool's filtration or drainage systems, Martín said.

That led to suspicions that a malfunction might have sucked the three victims underwater, but the police statement said that investigators had checked the equipment at the resort and found no problems.

Martín said the employee had clarified that he had had trouble exiting the pool because he was trying to retrieve the bodies.

Samples of the water were also taken and were being analysed, the statement said, but autopsies found no evidence of chemical intoxication and ruled the cause of deaths as drowning.