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 on 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 metres, The Rising Nepal newspaper reported.
In 1975, Chinese surveyors measured Mt. Everest as 8,848.13 metres 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.