Neuenkirchen (dpa/mv) - The exact clarification of the fatal accident at work in the summer in a large rapeseed warehouse in Neuenkirchen (West Pomerania-Greifswald) is still dragging on. As a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office said on Thursday, the technical expert's report is expected in March 2023 at the earliest. In the accident in July 2022, a 23-year-old worker was buried by a five-meter-high concrete wall and died. The public prosecutor's office in Stralsund is investigating the management of the farm on suspicion of negligent homicide.

The investigation was very complicated because the 2.4-tonne concrete parts had already been pulled apart to save the man before investigators got there, the spokesman said. The appraiser is supposed to find out whether the warehouse walls, which were built from the large concrete parts, were really built correctly or whether the warehouse had been incorrectly filled with rapeseed grains. There were around 700 tons of rapeseed in the store after threshing.

The 23-year-old employee is said to have leaned against the concrete walls with a ladder from the outside. Then the concrete wall suddenly collapsed to the outside. The buried person from the Vorpommern-Rügen district was freed by firefighters after 40 minutes, but died at the scene of the accident. A second employee was working in the camp who was able to save himself but suffered a shock.