Italian man crushed to death by falling cheese wheels
An Italian man has been crushed to death under thousands of vast wheels of a Parmesan-style hard cheese, which weigh around 40kg each, firefighters said.
Giacomo Chiapparini, 74, was buried under the cheeses when a shelf broke in his warehouse in the northern Lombardy region on Sunday.
That created a domino effect that brought down thousands of wheels, said firefighter Antonio Dusi from Bergamo.
Rescuers “had to move the cheeses and the shelves by hand,” Mr Dusi said, adding that it “took about 12 hours” to finally find Mr Chiapparini.
The warehouse, located in the small town of Romano di Lombardia near Bergamo, contained a total of 25,000 wheels of Grana Padano, a hard cheese which resembles Parmesan and is very popular in Italy.
Mr Chiapparini had been checking on the ripening wheels, which were stored on metal shelves, the highest of which stood at ten metres.
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