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Remains of British climber who went missing in Swiss Alps found after 52 years

The climber was reported missing in July 1971 and his remains were found by two climbers last year

Published: Thu 31 Aug 2023, 9:49 PM

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  • AFP

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Tourists pose for photograph with a Swiss flag on the Swiss Alps. — AFP file

Tourists pose for photograph with a Swiss flag on the Swiss Alps. — AFP file

The remains of a climber discovered in the Swiss Alps last year have been identified as a British mountaineer who went missing 52 years ago, local police said on Thursday.

It is the latest in a series of discoveries of remains of long-missing climbers revealed as the Alp's glaciers melt and recede because of global warming.


The climber was reported missing in July 1971 but search teams at the time turned up nothing, said police in the canton of Valais, southwest Switzerland.

Then on August 22, 2022, two climbers found human remains on the Chessjengletscher glacier near Saas-Fee, an Alpine village in the Saas Valley.

It took a year to identify the person, as experts worked their way through the case files of missing climbers.

Finally, with the help of Interpol Manchester and the police in Scotland, a relative was found and a DNA sample allowed them to identify the British mountaineer, police said in a statement.

The climber was formally identified on August 30.

Increasing numbers of human remains, some of them of climbers missing for decades, have been discovered in recent years as glaciers in the Alps melt because of global warming.

In late July, the remains of a German climber who went missing in 1986 were discovered on another Swiss glacier.



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