Remains of Belgian climbers missing since 1992 recovered from Swiss glacier

The bodies of two Belgian climbers who vanished in the Swiss Alps over three decades ago have been recovered, authorities have confirmed.

Police in the southwestern Valais region, which maintains a records database of people reported missing throughout the past century, said that receding glaciers are increasingly exposing the remains of people who were lost decades earlier.

Late in July, a hiker stumbled upon human remains following the retreat of the Trift glacier, located south of the city of Lucerne.

That prompted a formal recovery operation, the regional government said on Wednesday.

Subsequent DNA analysis carried out at a Valais hospital established that the remains belonged to two Belgian hikers, aged 39 and 41 at the time of their disappearance.

They went missing near the Weissmies peak, dozens of kilometres to the south of where their bodies were discovered, back in 1992.

Though such discoveries are not new, they have grown far more frequent as glaciers across Switzerland melt at an accelerating rate.

Many scientists attribute the recent surge in melting and beyond to global warming.

Three years ago, DNA tests confirmed that a body found on a Swiss glacier near the Matterhorn was a German mountaineer who disappeared in 1986.

In 2022, plane parts were found on the Aletsch glacier from a Piper Cherokee that crashed in 1968.

Two sets of human remains were also revealed – one thought to have died in the 1970s or 1980s on the Chessjen glacier, and one thought to have died in the 1980s on the Stockji glacier.

In 2015, the remains of two young Japanese climbers who went missing on the Matterhorn in a 1970 snowstorm were found and their identities were confirmed through the DNA testing of their relatives.

In 2014, the body of missing British climber Jonathan Conville, missing since 1979 on the Matterhorn, was discovered by a helicopter pilot.

His family said that finally knowing he had died in an environment he loved was bittersweet.

Switzerland has more glaciers – a total of 1,400 – than any other country in Europe, accounting for about half of all those in the European Alps.