Six months after the discovery of the remains, the Swiss police, in cooperation with their British colleagues, managed to establish who they belong to.
Human remains found in the ice of a melting Swiss glacier have been identified as belonging to a British climber who went missing almost 50 years ago.
According to Dailymail, at that time the climber, whose name has not been disclosed, was 32 years old. He went missing in December 1974 and his body was found in the Pennine Alps on 5 September 2022. Since the discovery of the remains, officials have been working with British police and diplomats to identify him.
“The remains found suggest that this could be the person who went missing in the Grand Combin area on December 31, 1974. DNA identification in cooperation with the UK police led to the confirmation of the identity of the missing person. He is a citizen of England, who at the time of the disappearance “, – said in the statement of the Vali canton police.
Switzerland’s glaciers have shrunk by around 50% in just 85 years, exposing the remains of missing climbers and hikers. In this regard, the police, in cooperation with the Air Force, are constantly looking for human remains.
How Switzerland searches for missing tourists
The Swiss authorities maintain a list containing the names of more than 300 people who have gone missing in the mountains on the territory of the state since 1925. Several bodies have been discovered in recent years due to melting glaciers. So, in another case, human remains were found on the Shtoky glacier in Zermatt in July 2022. He was a 27-year-old German climber who went missing in August 1990.
And in 2017, the mummified bodies of a Swiss couple who never returned home after milking cows in a meadow near their home in 1942 were found in a glacier. After they were found, the couple’s youngest daughter said the family never stopped looking for them.
“We have been looking for them all our lives, without stopping. We thought that somehow we would be able to give them the funeral they deserve,” she commented.
