The horrific remains emerged when a mummified skull was found about 1,000 metres from the summit of Maxico’s highest peak. Pico de Orizaba.
A second body was then also found nearby.
Initially, only a head and a hand could be seen sticking out of the snow and ice. but subsequent excavations led to the discovery that the hand actually belonged to another body that appeared to be embracing the first corpse.
The frozen bodies, one with clenched fists and a horrified expression, may well be of two of three Mexicans who disappeared after an avalanche struck 55 years ago, according to local officials. But the grim discovery has prompted families in Spain and Germany, whose loved ones were also lost on the mouton to contact mountain rangers in the hope they have finally found their relatives’ remains.
The skull and hand were seen poking out of a glacier 5,270 metres up the volcano by climbers, then 12 local civil protection mountaineers who carried out a search discovered the second body.
Juan Navarro, mayor of nearest town, Chalchicomula de Sesma, said that clothing found on the mummies will help identify them, but DNA tests will take place.
But due to bad weather conditions the bodies have not yet been recovered from the mountainside.
The corpses appeared partly mummified, retaining skin and muscle tissue and some clothing. There have been several instances of bodies turning up in glaciers decades after a person disappeared as freezing can preserves bodies in a state similar to mummification.
Town officials are trying to see if they can use a government helicopter to bring the corpses down, but first they must be dug out from a very steep mountain slope.
The local newspaper El Universal interviewed Luis Espinoza, 78, a surviving member of that 1959 expedition.
He said only three others survived, and three disappeared. He said he had been caught in the same avalanche but was able to dig himself out. Based on photos of the first body, Espinoza said he believed it to be one of the members of his group of climbers.
