Azura Beebeejaun, a nine-year-old girl who was captured on Google's Street View lying on the pavement of a street in England, said she was just "playing dead" when her picture was taken.

The Daily Mail said the photos of the girl's body alarmed residents so much that they called the Internet company and a newspaper to report it.

Azura said she was "chuffed" her image was on the internet.

"I didn't know anything about the Google Street View car [recording me]. I fell over while I was playing with my friend and thought it would be funny to play dead," she said.

"I'm quite chuffed I'm on the internet. It is quite funny and I can't wait to tell my classmates when I go back to school."

The girl's mother, Saira Beebeejaun, said she was shocked her daughter's antics made national headlines in Britain. She says Azura often played around on the street where their home was.

"I understand how some people might have thought the picture looked like a dead body - I just wish she was that quiet all the time," she said.

The image was uploaded to the company's free mapping site in March. The photo can still be viewed. It is not the first unusual photo the Street View cameras have taken.

In 2008, the mapping site included a photo of an Australian man who fell asleep on a suburban street. The man told a newspaper that he was saddened by the funeral of a friend and had lied down on the grass near his mother's home because he felt ill.

"I'm not too happy about it - I mean, I shouldn't have been there in the state that I was in but I wasn't really thinking there would be someone driving past with a video camera on the roof filming me either," he said.