Human remains discovered on a Swiss glacier last month have been identified as belonging to a man who disappeared more than 30 years ago.
The find was made on Oct. 15, when a group of adventurers climbing the Ober Gabelhorn, a peak in Switzerland’s Pennine Alps, came across bones on the Obergabelhorn glacier above Zinal, according to a recent press release from the Valais Cantonal Police.
“Upon receiving the report, officers from the Valais cantonal police were flown to the site by helicopter to secure the remains and personal belongings,” authorities said.
After the discovery, the public prosecutor’s office opened an inquiry, and investigators were ultimately able to confirm the identity of the remains.
Police said the climber was a Swiss citizen born in 1969, but did not release his name or further personal details.
Earlier investigations had determined that two mountaineers went missing in the same area in November 1994. The remains of one of the victims were found in 2000, and officials now say that locating the second climber’s remains finally resolves the decades-old mystery of their disappearance.
Switzerland’s tourism website notes that the Ober Gabelhorn, which rises to more than 13,000 feet, is considered one of the most beautiful mountains in the Alps.
Rapid glacier melt driven by rising global temperatures linked to climate change has increasingly uncovered the remains of missing hikers and climbers in recent years, CBS News reported.
A similar case emerged in August, when the British Antarctic Survey announced that the remains of Dennis “Tink” Bell — a 25-year-old researcher who died on a glacier near the Antarctic Peninsula in July 1959 — had been located and identified.
That same month, officials in Pakistan reported that the body of a man who disappeared nearly three decades ago was found intact in a melting glacier in the Kohistan region.
A shepherd discovered the well-preserved body in an area known as Lady Valley, according to the BBC. An identification card bearing the name “Naseeruddin” was found with the remains, and authorities linked it to a man who vanished in 1997 after falling into a glacier crevasse during a snowstorm.
