Ice Melt Reveals Bodies of Climbers Missing for Decades in Swiss Alps

The bodies of two Belgian climbers who disappeared 34 years ago have been discovered in the Swiss Alps, as they emerged from the melting Trift Glacier. This was announced by police on Wednesday. On July 26, a hiker found two bodies on the glacier in southern Switzerland, near the Italian border, according to a statement from the regional police in Wallis canton. The remains were transported to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Wallis Hospital in Sion for identification. “A direct comparison of DNA profiles confirmed that these are the two mountaineers who went missing in the Weissmies region in 1992,” said the police statement. The Belgian climbers were 39 and 41 at the time of their disappearance.

The Trift suspension bridge and Trift Glacier in Switzerland are significant landmarks captured in a 2018 image by BlueRed/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. Wallis police maintain a record of missing persons dating back to 1925, predominantly documenting cases from high mountain areas and rivers. “The retreat of glaciers has repeatedly exposed the remains of people who disappeared in the mountains several decades ago,” noted the police in their Wednesday statement.

Bodies Exposed by Melting Glaciers

Climate change has hastened glacier melt, leading to the uncovering of climbers’ bodies that have been held for years or even decades. Last year, the bones of a Swiss mountaineer who disappeared in 1994 were uncovered on an Ober Gabelhorn mountain glacier, also located in Wallis.

In August 2025, the remains of a British researcher who vanished in 1959 in Antarctica were found near a glacier on King George Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. Around that same period, a missing man’s body was discovered on a melting glacier in Pakistan, 28 years after he disappeared.

Earlier in July 2024, the body of an American mountaineer was found 22 years after he vanished while climbing a snowy peak in Peru. Just the year before, the remains of a German climber who disappeared in 1986 were recovered from a glacier in the Swiss Alps.

In 2017, mountain rescue teams in Italy recovered hikers’ remains on a Mont Blanc glacier. These remains likely dated from the 1980s or 1990s. A few weeks later, remains found in the Swiss Alps were identified as a British mountaineer who went missing in 1971. That same year, a glacier retreat in Switzerland uncovered the bodies of a couple frozen since their disappearance in 1942.