Reaching new heights: Everest taller than thought, say China and Nepal
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Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, has gotten even higher. That is according to new measurements taken by Nepal and China and revealed on Tuesday that put an end to decades of dispute between the two countries over the mountain’s true height.
The new height of 8,848.86 metres (29,031ft) is 86cm higher than the measurement previously recognised by Nepal, and more than four metres above China’s official figure.
Everest straddles the border between Nepal and China, and the two have long struggled to agree on exactly how tall the mountain really is.
Nepal had previously used a 1953 Indian survey measurement, putting the height at 8,848 metres.
But that height included the snow and ice on top of the mountain’s peak.
China, meanwhile, made its own surveys, which measured only the rock, and came up with a figure of 8,844.43 metres.
Last year, Nepal decided to launch a new survey amid speculation a 2015 earthquake may have affected the height.
It dispatched some 300 experts and surveyors to take new measurements, a mammoth task that saw surveyors haul 40kg of equipment to the mountain’s summit and spend hours in the cold collecting data.
China later joined the expedition and the final result announced on Monday was an average of the data recorded by the Nepalese and Chinese teams.
“So today we end these speculations,” said Nepalese land minister Padma Kumari Aryal on Tuesday. “And with an aim of establishing a single height in the world, we have completed this work.”
Source: Thanks france24