The remains of a man found near an Austrian glacier have been identified as those of a German climber who died nearly 60 years ago, local police said Thursday.
Climate change accelerated the melting of glaciers, and retreating ice released the bodies of climbers that had been trapped for years, often decades.
The German's bones, including part of a leg, were found last year in the western Austrian province of Tyrol.
He was reported missing in March 1967 after he fell into a crevasse while crossing the Wasserfalferner glacier on skis with a companion, local police told AFP.
Search teams were unable to retrieve him from the deep crevasse at the time, and bad weather forced them to call off the rescue mission.
In August 2024, a local resident found the bones about 2,300 feet below the glacier in the Rotmostal Valley and alerted the authorities.
Martin Zwick/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
After extensive DNA analysis of the human remains, forensic experts were able to “attribute them to a 30-year-old German man from the Baden-Württemberg region” who had been missing since 1967, police said.
“In recent years, the retreat of glaciers in the Alps – in this case the Wasserfalferner glacier – has led to the discovery of the remains of climbers, sometimes long missing,” police spokesman Erwin Voegele told AFP.
“Such finds have also happened in neighboring Switzerland and Italy, but it is rare to identify remains almost 60 years after the accident,” Voegele added.
The country's Alpine Club warned last year that the two glaciers would shrink by more than 100 meters by 2023.
Melted glaciers reveal the remains of tourists and climbers
As glaciers continue to melt and retreat, which many scientists blame on global warming, the number of remains of hikers, skiers and other climbers who disappeared decades ago is increasing.
Last July, the preserved body of American mountaineer William Stampl — who disappeared more than two decades ago while climbing a snowy peak in Peru — was found after the effects of melting ice caused by climate change. He was reported missing in 2022 when an avalanche buried his group of climbers on Mount Huascaran, which is over 22,000 feet high.
In September 2023, the remains of a German climber who went missing in 1971 were found found on a Swiss glacier.Two months before that, the remains of another German mountaineer who went missing in 1986 were found. discovered in Switzerland. Police have not identified the climber posted a photo hiking boots and gear sticking out of the snow and apparently belonging to the missing person.
In August 2017, the Italian mountain rescue services discovered remains of tourists on the glacier on the south slope of Mont Blanc probably dates to the 1980s or 1990s.
A month before, a shrinking glacier in Switzerland revealed the bodies of a frozen couple who went missing in 1942.