Everest Height Revised at 8848.86m
08/12/2020 - The revised height of the world’s tallest peak “Mt Everest” or Nepali call “Sagarmatha” or Chinese call Chomolungma has been revealed 8848.86.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali announced that the ‘new height’ of the mountain is 8848.86 metres.
Everest’s revised height was officially announced by Nepali and Chinese officials, virtually. Minister Gyawali and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi were present at the virtual programme, who read out the letters written by their respective heads-of-the-state — President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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.
Nepal decided to re-measure the peak after speculations that the widely accepted height might not be the actual height after the 2015 earthquake.
In 1999 an American survey, sponsored by the National Geographic Society and others, took precise measurements using a global positioning system, or GPS, equipment. Their finding of 29,035 feet (8,850 metres) was accepted by the society and by various specialists in the fields of geodesy and cartography.
Nepal had welcomed the revelations but continued to use the height of 8,848 metres determined in 1954.
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.
Their finding of 29,035 feet [8,850 metres], plus-minus 6.5 feet [2 metres] more than the accepted height, was accepted by the American society and by various specialists in the fields of geodesy and cartography. But Nepal did not accept it.
Officials of the government had coordinated with China, who sent its own team to measure the height of the Everest. Nepal and China had agreed to jointly announce the revised height during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in 2019.
Nepal had been working on the measurement of Everest since 2011. Nepal’s own survey team led by Khim Lal Gautam climbed Everest on May 22, 2019, and installed global positioning system equipment and ground-penetrating radar at the summit.
Chinese surveyors had reached the top of Everest on May 27, 2020 for their own survey.
A total of 6,507 mountaineers have climbed Everest from the Nepal side since Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and New Zealander Edmund Percival Hillary first set foot atop the world's highest peak in May 1953.