What is millions of years old and still growing?
That would be Mount Everest. The world’s highest point above sea level got a bit taller Tuesday after China and Nepal jointly announced a new official height for the iconic mountain.
The two countries, which had long disagreed about Everest’s exact height, said the mountain measures 29,031.7 feet. The new figure is slightly higher than Nepal’s previous estimate and about 13 feet higher than China’s.
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In a show of unity between the two nations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Nepalese counterpart, Pradeep Gyawali, appeared at a news conference Tuesday and simultaneously pressed buttons to reveal the new height on the screen.
It was the culmination of nearly two years of work by surveyors from the two countries to remeasure Everest, which is on the border between Nepal and China in the Himalayas.
Experts were concerned that the mountain may have shrunk after a huge earthquake devastated the region in 2015. The 7.8-magnitude quake killed 9,000 people, including 19 who were at Everest’s base camp, and damaged about 1 million structures in Nepal.
Some scientists also wondered whether the mountain had actually grown over time because of shifting tectonic plates.
Tuesday’s announcement appears to be the most accurate measurement ever taken and is expected to become the standard height for Everest.
A group of Nepalese surveyors and climbers scaled the mountain in May 2019 and installed GPS and satellite equipment for its assessment. A team from China conducted its own measurements over the spring of 2020, when the site was closed off to climbers because of the coronavirus pandemic.
China’s previous measurement was lower than Nepal’s because it didn’t include the snow cap.
“This is a milestone in mountaineering history which will finally end the debate over the height and now the world will have one number,” Santa Bir Lama, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told The Associated Press.
With News Wire Services