Nepal to re-measure Everest's height

The government of Nepal has ordered Mount Everest to be measured anew in a bid to determine just exactly how tall the mountain is, a local newspaper reports.

The decades-old measurement of 8,848 metres has been recognized by the country's government, but two separate claims by China and western climbers have pegged the height of the world's tallest mountain a little shorter and taller, respectively, the Time of India reported.

Gopal Giri, a spokesman for the land reforms ministry, told the newspaper that the government decided during its annual budget speech to measure the mountain. The work will include placing a device on the peak that will measure the height of the mountain using satellite technology, Giri said. The process will take two years and stations will be set up in three different locations.

China has been asking Nepal to measure the height of the mountain without snow, Giri said. In recent border talks between the two countries, Beijing said that Everest was 8,844 metres, the newspaper reported. A 1999 American expedition pegged the height of the peak, using GPS satellites, at 8,850 meters.

New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, were the first to climb Mount Everest in 1953

Source:http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/world/archives/2011/07/20110721-125344.html .