Man crushed to death under 25,000 falling cheese wheels

In an unusual incident, an Italian man namely Giacomo Chiapparini, 75, was crushed to death after nearly 25,000 wheels of cheese fell on him in his warehouse.

The incident took place on Sunday in which the 75-year-old man was buried under a massive stockpile of ripening Parmesan-style cheese following a shelf collapse at the site located in Lombardy, a region in northern Italy.

According to the reports, the victim was checking on his supply of Grana Padano, a type of hard and dry Italian cheese, when a warehouse shelf broke, setting in motion a “domino effect” that toppled more shelves and ultimately, more cheese wheels – each of which weighed around 40 kg.

Cheese wheels are typically stacked to full capacity in such warehouses, which store them for months until they reach the right level of maturity.

The tragic incident at the Chiapparini Giacomo farm led to its owner being crushed inextricably under truckles of falling death, which took firefighters about 12 hours to move by hand until his body was found Monday, AFP reported.

Police in Romano di Lombardia, the Italian commune where the accident occurred, are investigating the

cause of shelf collapse that killed the 75-year-old warehouse owner.According to The Guardian, some of the metal shelves on which the ripening cheese was stored stood at 33 feet.

The estimated damage, including the destroyed facility, was around €7 million or Rs 63.64 crore.

Meanwhile, the Italian newspaper Il Giorno reported that local cheese factories are working “against time” to salvage the fallen cheese for re-storage in a different facility and to avoid wastage.

In some ways, fellow proprietors are returning the favour to Chiapparini, who offered to keep their cheese wheels in his warehouse after theirs were destroyed by an earthquake that struck the region of Emilia Romagna in 2012.