A 74-year-old cheesemaker in northern Italy was killed Sunday after a warehouse shelving unit gave way, burying the man under wheels of cheese.

Giacomo Chiapparini was alone in his warehouse at around 9 p.m. Sunday in the village of Romano di Lombardia after he and his son had checked earlier on a machine that rotates and cleans mold from the still-maturing wheels of Grana Padano cheese.

“These machines clean and rotate the wheels, so when they find them even slightly out of place, they send a warning. It’s a common problem. So Giacomo and his son went there to adjust the wheels,” Bortolo Ghislotti, president of the Bergamo agricultural district, told NBC News.

After fixing the machine, Chiapparini’s son left and Chiapparini went back in to turn the unit on.

The warehouse had 10 rows of shelves, each containing 1,600 wheels, per the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Shortly after restarting the machine, something caused a shelving unit to break or topple, creating a domino effect that buried Chiapparini in cheese.

Chiapparini’s son Tiziano and employees called for help after hearing the crash, but rescuers weren’t able to find the body until the next morning.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.