The mountaineer’s remains have been identified nearly 6 decades after he fell from a glacier in Austria

The remains of a man discovered near a glacier in Austria have been identified as those of a German mountaineer who died nearly 60 years ago, local police said Thursday.

Climate change This accelerated the melting of glaciers, as the retreating ice released climbers’ bodies that had held them for years, often decades.

The German man’s bones, including part of his leg, were discovered last year in the Tyrol province of western Austria.

Local police told AFP that he was reported missing in March 1967 after falling into a crevasse while crossing the Wasserwalwerner glacier on skis with a companion.

Search teams were unable to extract him from the deep crack at that time, and bad weather conditions forced them to stop the rescue mission.

In August 2024, a local resident found the bones about 2,300 feet below the glacier in the Rotmosthal Valley and informed the authorities.

Police said that after extensive DNA analyzes of the human remains, forensic experts could “attribute them to a 30-year-old German from the Baden-Württemberg region” who has been missing since 1967.

“In recent years, the retreat of glaciers across the Alps – in this case the Wasserwalferner Glacier – has led to the discovery of the remains of mountaineers who were sometimes long missing,” police spokesman Erwin Voegele told AFP.

“Such discoveries have also occurred in neighboring Switzerland and Italy, but it is rare for remains to be identified almost 60 years after the incident,” Voegele added.

The country’s Alpine Club warned last year that Austria was in danger of becoming largely “ice-free” within 45 years, and reported that in 2023 two glaciers had shrunk by more than 100 metres.

Melting glaciers reveal the remains of hikers and climbers

As glaciers increasingly melt and recede, which many scientists blame on global warming, there has been an increase in discoveries of the remains of hikers, skiers and other alpine climbers who have been missing for decades.

Last July, the preserved body of L American mountaineer William Stumpfel — who disappeared more than two decades ago while climbing a snowy peak in Peru — was just that Found After being exposed to melting ice caused by climate change. He was reported missing in 2022 when an avalanche buried his climbing team on Mount Huascaran, which is more than 22,000 feet high.

In September 2023, the remains of a German climber who went missing in 1971 were found It was discovered on a Swiss glacierTwo months earlier, the remains of another German climber who went missing in 1986 were also found Discover in Switzerland. The police did not identify this climber, however I posted a picture From hiking boots and equipment sticking out of the snow that appeared to belong to the missing man.

In August 2017, Italian mountain rescue teams recovered the mountain Remains of hikers on a glacier On the south face of Mont Blanc it probably dates from the 1980s or 1990s.

The month before that, a shrinking glacier in Switzerland revealed the frozen bodies of a couple She disappeared in 1942.