The body of Nasiruddin, missing since 1997, was discovered almost perfectly preserved near the edge of the melting Lady Meadows glacier in Northern Pakistan. He and his brother had fled to the mountains after a dispute in their village. His brother made it out alive, but Nasiruddin fell into a crevasse.
Over the last 28 years, his family searched for him, often revisiting the glacier in the hope of finding signs, clues—anything. They never found any. They mourned and processed Nasiruddin’s passing, thinking they’d never see him again.
It wasn’t until July 31 of this year that a shepherd stumbled across his intact remains, still dressed and carrying an ID card on him. His clothes weren’t even tattered and torn. After nearly 30 years, he had finally been released from the glacier he had been trapped within.
And it’s all, unfortunately, thanks to climate change.
Remains of Man Missing for 28 Years Discovered in Melting Glacier
Nasiruddin was found in Kohistan, a district in the far north where the Himalaya, Hindu Kush, and Karakoram mountain ranges meet. It’s traditionally a cold, icy region that has recently been less cold and less icy thanks to climate change.
Pakistan has more glaciers than anywhere outside the poles—over 13,000 of them. But global heating, powered by humanity’s near-outright refusal to prioritize anything over corporate profits and slight discomfort, is melting them fast.
As these glaciers vanish, all that unlocked water turns into flash floods or threatens to contaminate downstream water supplies with ancient viruses and bacteria that have been trapped for decades and even centuries.
Warming seas are unlocking bodies that were trapped within these glaciers. About a year ago, CBS reported that the mummified remains of an American mountain climber who had been missing for 22 years had suddenly reappeared in Peru after severe climate change-induced ice melt.
Each discovery is a mystery solved, a reunion, of sorts, that comes at the expense of the planet and all the rest of us who live on it, or rather, want to keep living on it.
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