The dead bodies of a couple who went missing very many years ago, have been found perfectly preserved in a glacier.
The couple’s bodies were found perfectly preserved in the shrinking glacier in Switzerland (Picture: EPA)
Photos have shown how the bodies of a couple who went missing 75 years ago were found perfectly preserved in a Swiss glacier.
According to Metro UK, Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin disappeared after going to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin in the Valais canton on August 15, 1942.
Their seven children have now spoken of their relief that they will now at least be able to give their parents a funeral.
‘We spent our whole lives looking for them, without stopping,’ their youngest daughter Marceline Uldry-Dumoulin, 79, told the Lausanne daily Le Matin. ‘I can say that after 75 years of waiting, this news gives me a deep sense of calm.’
In a statement released overnight, Valais cantonal police said that two bodies bearing identity papers had been discovered last week by a worker on the shrinking Tsanfleuron glacier near a ski lift above Les Diablerets resort, at an altitude of 2,615 metres.
DNA testing is now going to be carried out to confirm the identities of the couple.
The surface of Tsanfleuron glacier, where the couple’s bodies were found (Picture: Getty Images)
‘The bodies were lying near each other,’ Bernhard Tschannen, director of Glacier 3000, told the paper. ‘It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of World War II.
‘They were perfectly preserved in the glacier and their belongings were intact.’
Tschannen then told the daily paper Tribune de Geneve: ‘We think they may have fallen into a crevasse where they stayed for decades. As the glacier receded, it gave up their bodies.’
Marcelin Dumoulin, 40, was a shoemaker, while 37-year-old Francine was a teacher. They left behind five sons and two daughters.
Udry-Dumoulin continued: ‘It was the first time my mother went with him on such an excursion. She was always pregnant and couldn’t climb in the difficult conditions of the glacier.
‘After a while, we children were separated and placed in families. I was lucky to stay with my aunt. We all lived in the region, but became strangers.
‘For the funeral, I won’t wear black. I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost.’