Stored cheese. Photo: Gianluca Colla

London: A British forklift driver buried for eight hours under tonnes of cheese has emerged unscathed.

The man, named by the BBC as Tomasz Wiszniewski, was trapped after shelves at a food distribution warehouse collapsed on Friday morning.

Search and rescue teams from the West Midlands, Merseyside and Leicestershire, including sniffer dogs, were involved in trying to pull the Polish worker from the wreckage inside the 60m building at the depot of haulage firm Edwards Transport in Hinstock, Shropshire.

While an onlooker had to be treated for shock, rescuers were gobsmacked as Mr Wiszniewski emerged unharmed.

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"Astonishingly, after so long trapped under the contents of the warehouse, the worker was able to walk out of the warehouse," an ambulance service spokesman said.

"He was then assessed by the paramedics from the hazardous area response team and taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Telford as a precaution but he appears uninjured."

One of the man's work colleagues told the BBC the sense of relief was "just immense".

"We couldn't have hoped for a better outcome," she added.

PA