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Mount Everest is more than 2 feet taller as China and Nepal agree on new height

InternationalMount Everest is more than 2 feet taller as China and Nepal agree on new height
Mount Everest is more than 2 feet taller as China and Nepal agree on new height. Pic/Twitter

Srinagar, December 8: Bringing an end to decades of dispute between two neighbours China and Nepal about the actual height of World’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, China and Nepal on Tuesday jointly announced the official new height of the peak.

As per latest height survey carried by China and Nepal, Mount Everest is more than two feet taller then previously known. And for this for the first time both the Countries have agreed as they announced the new height of Evrest which is now 8,848.86 metres. That means 86 centimetres or 2.82 feet more than previously known .

The exact height of Mount Everest had been contested ever since a group of British surveyors in India declared the height of Peak XV, as it was initially called, to be 8,778 metres in 1847.

Everest stands on the border between China and Nepal and mountaineers climb it from both sides.

The Nepal government decided to measure the exact height of the mountain as some geologists suggested that there might have been some changes due to various reasons, including the devastating earthquake of 2015. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people in Nepal, and caused an avalanche which buried parts of the base camp at the mountain.

Everest’s revised height was officially announced by Nepalese and Chinese foreign ministers at a virtual event.

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi attended the virtual event, and read out the letters written by their respective heads-of-the-state — President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“This is a historic day. The new height of Mt Everest is 8,848.86 metres,” Gyawali said while making the much-awaited announcement.

Wang too announced the mountain’s height to be 8,848.86 metres immediately afterwards.

The new height is 86 cms ( 2.82 feet) more than the previous measurement. According to the measurement done in 1954 by Survey of India, the height of Mount Everest is 8,848 metres.

The widely accepted height of 8,848 metres or 29,028 feet was determined by the Survey of India in 1954 from Bihar using the trigonometric method. It was the third survey by India, The Kathmandu Post reported.

A Chinese survey in 1975 obtained the figure of 29,029.24 feet (8,848.11 metres), and an Italian survey, using satellite surveying techniques, obtained a value of 29,108 feet (8,872 metres) in 1987, but questions arose about the methods used, the report said.

The latest survey puts both the countries on the same page about its height as Beijing seeks firm up its strategic ties with Nepal with huge investments in infrastructure projects, while enhancing its political influence over the Himalayan country.

President Xi said in his letter that China and Nepal reached a consensus last year on the joint announcement of the new height of the peak.

For more than a year, the two countries’ survey teams have overcome all kinds of difficulties, solidly carried out their work, and finally reached a conclusion on the snow-covered height based on the International Height Reference System, he said.

With Inputs from PTI

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