Melting glacier uncovers man who had been missing for 28 years
Naseeruddin’s body likely would have remained hidden had the ice not retreated.
A melting glacier in northern Pakistan has revealed the body of a man missing for 28 years, several media outlets report.
The man, discovered in late July in the Supat Valley by a shepherd, was identified through a card in his pocket.
"What I saw was unbelievable," Omar Khan, the shepherd who found the body, told BBC Urdu.
"The body was intact. The clothes were not even torn."
Police used the ID card, which read "Naseeruddin," to link the body to a 31-year-old man who disappeared in June 1997 after reportedly falling into a crack in a glacier. He had been in the area on horseback with his brother, Kathiruddin. They arrived in the afternoon, and Naseeruddin entered a cave. When he did not return, Kathiruddin called for help.
Naseeruddin had a wife and two children. The family returned to the site several times in hopes of finding his body, Malki Ubaid, Naseeruddin’s nephew, told AFP.
“Our family left no stone unturned to trace him over the years,” he is quoted as saying.
“Our uncles and cousins visited the glacier several times to see if his body could be retrieved, but they eventually gave up as it wasn’t possible.”
Ubaid said the discovery has provided his family with “some relief.”
Quick freeze can "preserve" a body
A glacier’s frigid temperature can cause a body to freeze quickly and prevent decomposition, because the rapid freezing process prevents the introduction of moisture and oxygen, two factors that cause a deceased body to break down over time.
There are more than 7,000 glaciers in Pakistan, and many have been melting at an accelerated rate due to climate change.
Naseeruddin’s body likely would have remained hidden had the ice not retreated.
Ice melt revealing an increasing number of bodies
At Mount Everest, which lies on the border of Nepal and Tibet, numerous bodies of climbers that were previously frozen in ice have been turning up. Increasingly warming temperatures and accelerated melt on the mountain, combined with the fact there is an estimated 200 dead bodies on Mount Everest, suggest the recent discoveries could be part of a long-term trend.
Header image: File photo of northern Pakistan's Kohistan District. (CerelacKhan/WikipediaCC BY-SA 3.0)