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Belgian hikers identified
The remains of two Belgian hikers who went missing in 1992 were found on the Trift Glacier in Switzerland’s Valais canton after the glacier melted, police said Wednesday.
“The bodies of the two men, who were 39 and 41 years old when they disappeared”
The men were 39 and 41 years old when they disappeared, and they had begun their hike on Sept. 4, 1992, from the Weissmies hut to climb toward the summit of Weissmies.
Valais police said a direct comparison of DNA profiles formally established that the bodies were those of two mountaineers who went missing in the Weissmies region in 1992.
Authorities said the remains were sent to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Valais Hospital in Sion, Switzerland, for identification, and the discovery was linked to glacier retreat exposing mortal remains long after disappearance.
Discovery and DNA process
A hiker discovered the bodies on July 26 near the Trift Glacier, and local authorities alerted immediately and transported the remains to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Wallis Hospital in Sion.
Forensic experts compared genetic material against records of long-missing persons, and Valais police said the DNA comparison established the men were two mountaineers who went missing in the Weissmies region in 1992.
Valais police also said, "Due to the retreat of the glaciers, it happens again and again that the mortal remains of people who disappeared in the mountains several decades ago come to light."
The Economic Times described the discovery as starting with a hiker spotting human remains exposed as the ice retreated near the Trift Glacier, close to the Italian border, in the Valais region.
What the case shows
The identification comes as Switzerland’s glaciers continue to shrink, with the Economic Times noting that the remains of people who disappeared decades earlier are repeatedly revealed as ice retreats.
“"the remains of people who disappeared in the mountains several decades ago are repeatedly revealed"”
The Economic Times said Valais police acknowledged that pattern, quoting their statement that "the remains of people who disappeared in the mountains several decades ago are repeatedly revealed," and it cited a Swiss mountaineer’s body found on Ober Gabelhorn after disappearing in 1994.
The Economic Times also pointed to other glacier-exposed discoveries, including aircraft wreckage surfacing on the Aletsch glacier in 2022 from a small plane that crashed in 1968.
In parallel, the UPI report said Valais police keep records of people reported missing in the mountains and rivers dating back to 1925, and it linked the recurring recoveries to glacier melt exposing what the ice had held for years and decades.