Featured Image Credit: Omar Khan/BBC News
Topics: Climate Change, World News
Emily Brown
A witness has described the 'unbelievable' moment he found the perfectly preserved body of a hiker who went missing in Pakistan's remote Kohistan region 28 years ago.
Omar Khan, a shepherd in the region, had been in the area known as Lady Valley, in the east of Pakistan, when he stumbled upon the body he described as being 'intact' on August 1.
The body was located in a glacier, which has been melting in recent years due to decreased snowfall, leaving it exposed to direct sunlight.
As the ice and snow in the area started to disappear, the remains of the hiker became visible.
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Khan commented: "What I saw was unbelievable."
Speaking to BBC Urdu, he added: "The body was intact. The clothes were not even torn."
As well as his perfectly preserved clothes, the body was found with an ID card which identified the man by the name Naseeruddin alias Hajo, son of Bahram, from the Saleh Khel tribe, the Express Tribune reports. Police confirmed his identity, after which locals began to share more information about how he'd come to be in the glacier.
Back in June 1997, Naseeruddin, who had a wife and two children, had been traveling on horseback with his brother, Kathiruddin.
The two men had reportedly left their home after a family feud, police said, and Kathiruddin told BBC Urdu that they made their way to the valley in the morning. Their decision to take the unconventional route through the mountain came as part of an attempt to avoid possible threats, the brother said.
According to the Express Tribune, Kathiruddin recalled hearing gunfire, prompting Naseeruddin to take cover in a cave.
However, he never came out.
Kathiruddin went looking for his brother, and when he couldn't find him, he enlisted the help of locals to help widen the search. Unfortunately, however, the search turned up nothing.
Now, it's clear that Naseeruddin had fallen into the glacier, exposing his body to extreme cold.
According to Prof Muhammad Bilal, head of the Department of Environment at Comsats University Islamabad, the extreme temperature in a glacier causes a body to freeze quickly, preventing decomposition.
The lack of moisture and oxygen in a glacier then causes the body to become mummified, leading to the perfect preservation that Khan witnessed when he found the body.
Now that his brother's body has been found, Kathiruddin is reported to be returning to Lady Valley to decide whether to bury the remains of Naseeruddin there, or transport them to the family's ancestral home.