Climber's body found in Alps 34 years on

The body of an English climber missing since 1979 has been found on the Matterhorn peak in the Swiss Alps, police say.

Police said on Tuesday that human bones were spotted by a helicopter pilot on the north face of the Matterhorn in August.

A police team recovered the remains and equipment, including an ice axe.

They checked them against a database of about 280 climbers listed as missing in the region since 1926.

Thanks to DNA tests, experts have finally been able to identify the remains as those of an Englishman who went missing in December 1979.

Police declined to reveal the 27-year-old man's name, citing Swiss confidentiality rules.

Thanks to technological advances that have boosted search operations, cases of climbers reported missing in recent years rarely remain unsolved.

But as Alpine glaciers melt due to global warming, more remains of long-lost climbers have emerged from the shrinking mountain ice.