A 41-year-old man has died in a work accident on the construction site of the Brenner Base Tunnel, police in the Austrian state of Tyrol reported on Wednesday.
The man was transporting a metal pipe with a forklift truck at the site near the town of Steinach am Brenner when he collided with a lorry parked against the tunnel wall. The worker was thrown out of the driver's cab and fatally injured.
The public prosecutor's office in Innsbruck has ordered a forensic autopsy and the seizure of the lorry.
The Brenner Base Tunnel is set to connect Innsbruck in Austria with the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is intended to speed up freight transport and rail travel across the Alps.
At 64 kilometres, it is set to form the world's longest railway tunnel. The project is expected to cost around €10.5 billion ($11.4 billion) and is scheduled for completion in 2028.
The latest accident is not the first to hit the project. A 57-year-old worker from Germany was fatally injured on the construction site at the end of March when he was hit by a transport locomotive while doing surveying work.