Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – Nepal plans to measure Mount Everest and close a running row with China. Education Minister and government spokesman Ganga Lal Tuladhar told AsiaNews, “The world should be clear about the height of world's tallest peak” in the world. “We began an independent Nepali project to measure the peak to make clear the confusion created by China.”
Everest, which straddles Nepal and Tibet, is generally thought to stand at 8,848 metres (29,029 feet) after an Indian survey in 1954. However, more recent measurements have varied by several metres.
Gopal Giri, a spokesman for Nepal’s Land Reform and Management Ministry, said that during border talks between the two countries, the Chinese delegates often use their measurement of 8,844 metres.
“We have begun the measurement to clear this confusion. Now we have the technology and the resources, we can measure ourselves,” Giri said. “This will be the first time the Nepal government has taken the mountain's height.”
The project's results would only be known in two years' time after reference points are set up on Everest and then global-positioning system satellites are used to calculate the precise measurement.
Last year, officials from both nations reached a compromise under which Nepal measured the height of Everest's snowcap at 8,848 metres and China measured the rock peak at 8,844 metres.
The first measurement of Everest was made in 1856. The mountain was conquered in 1953 by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, and has since been climbed by more than 3,000 people.
Nepal shares a border of 1,414 km with Tibet. Prompted by India, the Nepali Royal government allowed free movement to Tibetan exiles between 1990 and 2006.
In fact, the Dalai Lama and members of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala (India) have visited Nepal several times.
Some 20,000 Tibetan refugees are registered with the United Nations in Nepal.
However, since the monarchy was abolished in 2006 and Maoist-Communist parties took power, Nepal has changed direction, abandoning its close ties to India in favour of closer ties with China.
In exchange of economic aid, Beijing has asked Nepal to close its borders with Tibet and crack down on anti-Chinese protests.
Nepal to measure real height of Everest
Kathmandu wants to clear up the “confusion created by China”. In two years, the first results should reveal the height of the roof of the world, on the border between the two countries.
