The bones of a British man who died in a terrible accident in Antarctica in 1959 have been discovered in a melting glacier. The remains were found in January by a Polish Antarctic expedition, alongside a wristwatch, a radio, and a pipe. He has now been formally identified as Dennis “Tink” Bell, who fell into a crevasse aged 25 when working for the organisation that became the British Antarctic Survey. Dennis was on a two-year assignment in Antarctica and was stationed at Admiralty Bay, a small UK base with about 12 men on King George Island. He died on a surveying trip, a few weeks after his 25th birthday, when he fell into a crevasse while trying to encourage the dogs pulling his sledge. His friend Jeff Stokes tried to rescue him, but Dennis fell again after the rope broke, and he didn’t survive. The base camp reports about the accident are business-like, and the morale was very low at the time, as another man, Alan Sharman, had died weeks earlier. Dennis’s brother, David, had given up hope of finding his brother’s remains and was astonished when he received the news that Dennis had been found. The Polish scientists who found Dennis’s remains carefully rescued them in four trips, as the place is dangerous and unstable, with slopes of up to 45 degrees and crevasses. Climate change is causing dramatic changes to many Antarctic glaciers, including Ecology Glacier, where Dennis’s remains were found. The remains will soon be brought back to England, where David and his sister Valerie plan to finally put Dennis to rest.
Source link
