Mount Everest new height 8,848.86 metres say’s Nepal & China – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

Mt Everest is 86 cms taller now

• The height of the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, is 8848.86 metres, Nepal and China on Tuesday jointly announced ending a longstanding debate about the height of the world’s tallest mountain.
• The new height is 86 cm – a little less than 3 feet – more than the previous measurement.

Joint Announcement by Nepal and China

• The height of the mountain peak that straddles the Nepal-China border, was announced simultaneously by Nepal’s foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Kathmandu and Beijing.

What was the previous height?

• The precise height of Mount Everest had been contested ever since a group of British surveyors in India declared the height of Peak XV, as it was initially called, to be 8,778 metres in 1847.
• Between 1849 and 1855, the Survey of India made observations from Dehradun, India base to Sonakhoda base in Bihar during which the Himalayan peaks of Nepal were also observed.
• At that time it was not known that this peak in the Himalayas was the highest in the world.

Sir George Everest

• During computations, the mean computed height of Peak XV came out to be 8839.80 metres, and it was later named after Sir George Everest, the ex surveyor-general of India.
• The widely accepted height of 8,848 metres was determined by the Survey of India in 1954 from Bihar using the trigonometric method.

Previous Height was 8848 metres

• The official Everest snow height of 8,848 meters (29,028 feet) was measured by the Survey of India in 1954. (used a device called a theodolite).
•  Then in 1999 a survey led by cartographer and explorer Bradford Washburn, and sponsored by the National Geographic Society, was the first to use GPS technology to measure the Everest summit.
• That team’s work delivered an altitude of 29,035 ft.

Why did the height change?

• Scientists wanted to analyse how a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015 affected the region. Himalayan and Eurasian Plate are converging tectonic plates.

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