{"id":117648,"date":"2026-08-19T22:20:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117648\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T22:20:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:20:40","slug":"bodies-of-hikers-who-disappeared-3-decades-ago-in-the-swiss-alps-discovered-after-glacier-melts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117648\/","title":{"rendered":"Bodies of hikers who disappeared 3 decades ago in the Swiss Alps discovered after glacier melts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The bodies of two Belgian hikers who vanished over 30 years ago in the Swiss Alps have finally been found, according to authorities.<\/p>\n<p>A hiker on the Trift Glacier, a valley in Switzerland, stumbled upon the human remains after a melting glacier exposed their corpses on July 26 \u2014 spurring a recovery operation, the regional police in Wallis canton<a href=\"https:\/\/www.polizeiwallis.ch\/medienmitteilungen\/saas-grund-zwei-seit-1992-vermisste-bergsteiger-gefunden\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> said in a statement on Wednesday. <\/a><\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50588235;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40416627\" width=\"888\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo-bluered-reda-universal-images-137904752.jpg\" alt=\"People crossing the Trift suspension bridge over a glacial lake in Switzerland.\" class=\"wp-image-40416627\"\/>The bodies of two Belgian hikers who vanished over three decades ago in the Swiss Alps have been recovered from a melting glacier. REDA\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>A DNA analysis revealed the bodies belonged to two mountaineers who were reported missing in the Weissmies mountain region in 1992, police said.<\/p>\n<p>The men were both Belgian nationals, aged 39 and 41, when they disappeared roughly 34 years ago, cops added. <\/p>\n<p>Their remains were taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Valais Hospital in Sion for identification.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40416638\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/lake-glacier-trift-view-bridge-137904753.jpg\" alt=\"View of the Lake and Glacier Trift from a hanging bridge in the Alps, Canton of Berne, Switzerland.\" class=\"wp-image-40416638\"\/>A hiker stumbled upon the remains of the Belgian mountaineers, aged 39 and 41, on the Trift Glacier on July 26.  Mik Man \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<p>Climate change has accelerated the melting of glaciers, and as a result the remains of hikers trapped in ice being unearthed is becoming more common,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/climbers-vanished-1992-found-glacier-swiss-alps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> CBS reported. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs glaciers retreat, it is becoming increasingly common for the remains of people who disappeared in the mountains several decades ago to emerge,\u201d police wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Swiss police said the<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/07\/30\/hikers-body-missing-37-years-unearthed-by-thawing-glacier\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> remains of a German hiker <\/a>who disappeared nearly four decades ago were found in the Theodul Glacier\u00a0in the southern Alps also due to a melting glacier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bodies of two Belgian hikers who vanished over 30 years ago in the Swiss Alps have finally&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[13078,57265,29240,41,17,1046],"class_list":["post-117648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-hiking","tag-human-remains","tag-missing-persons","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117124506100160660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}