NEW DELHI, Dec 8: Mount Everest has grown taller by 86 centimetres from the last mapping of the peak 66 years ago and it is still the tallest mountain peak on the Plane earth.
After a year-long survey, Nepal and China on Tuesday jointly revealed the results of the new calculations putting the height of Mount Everest at 8848.86 mts. 86 cms taller than 8848 metre calculated in 1954 as per a record in the Survey of India.
“The initiation of Sagarmatha (Nepali name for Mount Everest), was undertaken to calculate the height of the world’s highest peak after speculations that widely agreed that the height of 8,848 metres may not be the actual length after the earthquake of 2015 that shook the country,” an official report from Nepal said.
Pradeep Kumar Gyawali Minister of Foreign Affairs Nepal and Padma Kumari Aryal Minister of Land Management and Wang Yi Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister announced the results of the survey during a virtual ceremony attended by both the countries on Tuesday afternoon.
Gyawali called it a “special and historic moment” and requested all concern countries and communities to take full initiatives to preserve the majestic Himalayas which are the source of freshwater for more than two billion people. “The time has come to take bold, tangible and productive initiatives to mitigate the adverse effect of climate changes,” he said.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between China’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Nepal’s Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty alleviation was signed last year for the joint declaration of heights. Both sides sent expedition teams and Nepal has focused for a year on the data collection of Mount Everest calculation.
(Venkatesh Iyer)