An Italian mountain rescue team has found a frozen body in the glaciers of northern Italy with personal effects indicating the victim is a Japanese mountain climber who perished 29 years ago, the Italian media reported Thursday.
The RAI television network said authorities found two business cards in the victim's pocket that identified the card-owner as Makoto Ohashi, a member of a Tokyo-based climbing group. Some Japanese coins were also reportedly found among his possessions.
The Japanese Consulate in Milan said authorities in Japan are trying to establish the victim's identity.
The body, discovered Wednesday, was found in the vicinity of a climber's hut on a 2,700-meter-high glacier on the 4,208-meter Grande Jorasse mountain near the French border.
The Italian news agency ANSA said records of mountain-climbing casualties kept by the local police in Aosta show that a 22-year-old Japanese mountaineer identified as Makoto Ohashi perished during an expedition in July 1972.
The group was at about the 3,400-meter level when the accident took place. This indicates that the moving glacier carried the body to the lower elevation over the last three decades.