Voice 9, International Desk: A 74-year-old Italian man was crushed under thousands of cheese wheels and died as a result. The shelves and cheeses had to be manually moved, according to officials, who also noted that it took them nearly 12 hours to locate Mr. Chiapparini's body.
According to firefighter Antonio Dusi from Bergamo, Giacomo Chiapparini, the owner of a cheese business, was buried under the cheese when a shelf in his warehouse in the northern Lombardy area shattered on Sunday, causing a domino effect that brought down thousands of wheels. According to CNN, his family, who both reside and work at the cheese factory, were able to identify him. On Thursday, there will be his funeral.
A total of 25,000 wheels of Grana Padano, a hard cheese that is particularly well-liked in Italy and is produced in the small town of Romano di Lombardia close to Bergamo, were kept in the storage. The ripening wheels were kept on metal shelves, the tallest of which was 10 meters (33 feet) high. Mr. Chiapparini had been inspecting them.
