World's tallest peak gets taller as Nepal & China announce new height of Mount Everest

The disagreements between Nepal and China over the correct height of Mount Everest has come to an end as the two countries have announced the newly-measured height of the world's tallest peak. After the joint measurement of Mount Everest undertaken by Nepal and China, the revised height has now been confirmed to be 8,848.86 meters which is equal to about 29,032 feet. This is 4m taller than Nepal's previous measure and almost the same as China had been claiming. Earlier on Sunday, Nepal's Department of Survey sent out an invitation to all media outlets and representatives on Sunday to inform them of the event to announce the new height of the mountain.

Speaking about it, Deputy Director-General of Nepal's Survey Department Sushil Narsingh Rajbhandari had earlier said, "We will be hosting a program to announce the new height on Tuesday afternoon at our office. People who actively took part in this procedure also are scheduled to be felicitated on the occasion."

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Nepal-China coordinate to measure Mount Everest's height

Following the 2015 earthquake, there was speculation that the erstwhile 8,848m height of the world's tallest peak may no longer be the actual height. This is why Nepal undertook the initiative to re-measure the height of Mount Everest and deployed officials for the same while collaborating with the Chinese government. As per reports, Nepal and China had signed a memorandum back in 2019 which states that they must jointly reveal the new height of Mt. Everest. The announcement of their findings was reportedly delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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According to reports, both countries have historically disagreed on the height of the mountain. However, they decided to settle their dispute. Thus, Nepal sent its own team to the summit back in 2019, while China sent its team to the summit in May this year. Both countries have accepted the claims of the other with China accepting Nepal’s claim that that snow height of the mountain is 8,848 metres while Nepal recognized that the rock height of the mountain is 8,844.43 metres. The measurements of Mt Everest till now had only been conducted by US, European or Indian surveyors.

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(With inputs from ANI & PTI)