A pass in the Swiss Alps buried under ice since at least Roman times is resurfacing as the country, like the rest of Western Europe, has been hit by heat waves.
Located at an altitude of 2,800 meters in the Glacier 3000 ski area, in the Diablerets sector (west), this pass is partially free of the ice that has covered it for at least 2,000 years.
“The pass will be completely outdoors in a few weeks,” those responsible for the ski area said Thursday.
In 2012, measurements revealed an ice thickness of about 15 meters at this location. The summer of 2022, which followed a very dry winter, proved catastrophic for the glaciers, which have been melting at an accelerated rate this year.
An expected melting 3 times greater than the last 10 years
According to glaciologist Mauro Fischer, a researcher at the University of Bern, who regularly visits the site, the loss of thickness of the glaciers in the region where the pass is located will be on average 3 times higher this year compared to the last 10 years. .
In the short term, these changes considerably modified the functioning of the ski area because the pass, which was frozen, made it possible to connect the Scex Rouge and Tsanfleuron glaciers on which skiers allowed themselves to slide. Now, a strip of land separates the two glaciers.
“We are planning the renovation of the facilities in this sector in the coming years, and one idea would be to change the route of the current chairlift,” explains the director of the chairlift, Bernhard Tschannen.
Airplane carcasses and skeletons rediscovered
The melting of the glaciers makes them more unstable, making it difficult to practice snow sports and hiking, but also allows the remains of planes and bodies of missing people to emerge from the past, sometimes for several decades.
Within two weeks, two human skeletons were found in the canton of Valais (west). Your identification is in process. According to the Swiss news agency ATS, the Valais police have a list of some 300 people missing since 1925, the vast majority of whom disappeared before DNA was used.
In July 2017, the Tsanfleuron Glacier had returned the bodies of a couple who disappeared in 1942. In June 2012, the Aletsch Glacier had also returned the bones of three brothers who had died in 1926.
More recently, last week, the remains of a plane that crashed in the Alps in 1968 were discovered on the Aletsch Glacier. On board were three people whose bodies had been recovered at the time, but no wreckage.
Source: BFM TV
