"Say cheese" is an expression often made to make someone smile, especially in front of the camera. However, a cheesemaker from Italy died while working in a dairy factory after an industrial accident took place. This saddening news has made people 'cry cheese' to mourn the incident.
74-year-old cheesemaker Giacomo Chiapparini, a local producer of Grana Padano — a Parmesan-style hard cheese that is popular in Italy — was working in the dairy factory's warehouse near Bergamo on Sunday when one of the metal racks that held the enormous cheese wheels that were ripening crashed.
In the disastrous event, the shelves stacked with cheese reaching the ceiling collapsed, eventually burying the elderly man and making him lose his breath. His body was reportedly not discovered by firefighters until early on Monday morning.
What led to the fatal accident in the factory? It is believed that a mechanical malfunction or wear and tear on the materials are likely to be the reason behind the accident.
“These machines clean and rotate the wheels, so when they find them even slightly out of place, they send a warning,” a neighbour of the deceased was quoted as saying in media reports while confirming that Giacomo and his son had fixed the issue by the time things led to the catastrophe.
