A Sudanese man in Saudi Arabia was killed inside his bathroom and police said an electric shortcut was the cause of his death, newspapers reported on Sunday.

The 35-year-old man was having a bath when his friends heard a deafening blast that was followed by a scream, they said.

Civil defence smashed the bathroom door and found the man lying motionless near the damaged washing machine that was hit by the blast, the papers said in a report from the northwestern town of Tabuk.