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Swiss glacier reveals couple lost in 1942 | Swiss glacier reveals couple lost in 1942 |
(35 minutes later) | |
A shrinking glacier in Switzerland has revealed two frozen bodies believed to be of a couple who went missing 75 years ago, Swiss media report. | A shrinking glacier in Switzerland has revealed two frozen bodies believed to be of a couple who went missing 75 years ago, Swiss media report. |
Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin disappeared at a height of 2,600m (8,530ft) after going to tend to their cows in the Alps in August 1942. | |
They were farmers whose seven children never gave up hope of finding them. | |
Their youngest daughter, 79, said she was now planning to give her parents the funeral they deserved. | |
Mr and Mrs Dumoulin were never found despite extensive searches. | |
"We spent our whole lives looking for them," Marceline Udry-Dumoulin told Lausanne daily Le Matin. | "We spent our whole lives looking for them," Marceline Udry-Dumoulin told Lausanne daily Le Matin. |
"I can say that after 75 years of waiting this news gives me a deep sense of calm." | |
A DNA test will be conducted in several days' time, police say. | |
Local police said the bodies were discovered last week on Tsanfleuron glacier, above the Les Diablerets resort, by a worker from ski-lift company, Glacier 3000. | Local police said the bodies were discovered last week on Tsanfleuron glacier, above the Les Diablerets resort, by a worker from ski-lift company, Glacier 3000. |
Director Bernhard Tschannen said his employee found some backpacks, tin bowls and a glass bottle, as well as male and female shoes, and part of a body under the ice. | Director Bernhard Tschannen said his employee found some backpacks, tin bowls and a glass bottle, as well as male and female shoes, and part of a body under the ice. |
Valais police said in a statement that a book, a backpack and a watch had been taken to Lausanne for forensic analysis. | |
Mr Tschannen said that it was likely the couple had fallen into a crevasse and the way they were dressed implied that they could have been there for 70 or 80 years. | |
"The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of World War Two," he told Le Matin. | "The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of World War Two," he told Le Matin. |
Ms Udry-Dumoulin said her mother, a teacher, rarely went on such walks with her husband, a shoemaker, because she spent much of her adult life pregnant and it was difficult terrain. | |
She said that she had never given up hoping that one day she would find her parents, even climbing the glacier three times to look for them. | |
Within two months of the disappearance of her parents, she and her siblings were placed with different families, and lost contact over the years. | |
She told Le Matin that she wanted to hold a long-awaited funeral, but would not wear black. | She told Le Matin that she wanted to hold a long-awaited funeral, but would not wear black. |
"I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost," she said. | "I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost," she said. |
The bodies of a number of missing climbers have been discovered in the Alps in recent years. | |
Climatologists say a rise in global temperatures is causing the ice to recede, revealing the corpses of those missing for decades. |