Everest grows a bit in new survey

KATHMANDU, Nepal — China and Nepal jointly announced a new official height for Mount Everest on Tuesday, ending a discrepancy between the two nations.

The new height of the world’s highest peak is 29,031.7 feet, which is slightly more than Nepal’s previous measurement and about 13 feet higher than China’s.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Nepalese counterpart, Pradeep Gyawali, simultaneously pressed buttons during a virtual conference and the new height flashed on the screen.

The height of Everest, which is on the border between China and Nepal, was agreed on after surveyors from Nepal scaled the peak in 2019 and a Chinese team did the same in 2020.

There had been debate over the actual height of the peak and concern that it might have shrunk after a major earthquake in 2015. The quake killed 9,000 people, damaged about 1 million structures in Nepal and triggered an avalanche on Everest that killed 19 people at the base camp.

There was no doubt that Everest would remain the highest peak because the second highest, Mount K2, is only 28,244 feet tall.

Everest’s height was first determined by a British team around 1856 as 29,002 feet. But the most accepted height has been 29,028 feet, which was determined by the Survey of India in 1954.

In 1999, a National Geographic Society team using GPS technology came up with a height of 29,035 feet. A Chinese team in 2005 said it was 29,009 feet because it did not include the snow cap.

A Nepal government team of climbers and surveyors scaled Everest in May 2019 and installed GPS and satellite equipment to measure the peak and snow depth on the summit.

Nepal’s climbing community welcomed the end of confusion over the mountain’s height.