Kathmandu: Nepal and China will jointly announce the revised height of Mt Everest, the world’s highest peak, probably during the upcoming visit of the Chinese defence minister to the Himalayan nation, according to media reports Thursday.
The Nepal government aimed to measure the exact height of the mountain amid debates that there might have been a change in its height due to various reasons, including the devastating earthquake of 2015.
According to the measurement done in 1954 by Survey of India, the height of Mt. Everest is 8,848 meters, The Rising Nepal newspaper reported.
In 1975, Chinese surveyors measured Mt. Everest as 8,848.13 meters above sea level, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
A survey in 2005 found the summit’s rock height at 8,844.43 meters and its ice-snow layer at 3.5 meters deep. There was one meter of unknown material, probably a mixture of ice and gravel, between the rock head and the snow cap, it said in a report in May this year.
A meeting of Nepal’s Council of Ministers held on Wednesday authorised the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation to announce the new height of Mt Everest, The Kathmandu Post reported.
“As the measurement work is in the final stage, the government is preparing to officially declare the new height of Mt. Everest,” Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation Padma Kumari Aryal said after the Cabinet meeting.
“It is the first time that the government has measured the height of the tallest peak in the world by using its own resources and equipment,” she said.
Quoting sources, MyRepublica newspaper said that Nepal and China are planning to announce the new height of Mt. Everest during the visit of Chinese Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe Sunday.
However, The Kathmandu Post reported that it was not clear whether the new height of Mt. Everest would be announced during Wei’s day-long visit to Kathmandu November 29.
Earlier, officials from Nepal and China had reached a consensus to announce the official height of Mt. Everest which straddles the two countries.
While Nepal started measuring the height of the mountain in 2017, China did so last year after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal. The two countries have already accomplished the task of measurement of the height of Mt. Everest, the reports said.
PTI