Fears Mount Everest has shrunk due to huge earthquake
A team of experienced climbers are heading up Mount Everest to check to see if it has shrunk after a huge earthquake.
Nepal is sending the group of four climbers to the Himalayan range on the border between Nepal and China after they spent two years training for the expedition.
Scientists fear the peak of the world’s tallest mountain may have shrunk by one inch after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015.
Susheel Dangol, the expedition’s co-ordinator from the Survey Department, said there were questions regarding the height of Everest after the earthquake.
Everest’s official height, which was first recorded by an Indian survey in 1954, is 29,029ft.
An American team added two metres to Everest’s height in 1999 after it used GPS technology to survey the peak.
The figure is now used by the US National Geographic Society, but it not widely accepted as the official figure.
The government surveyors will make their way up the mountain with advanced equipment enabling them to collect data to determine if the peak has reduced.
Expedition’s leader and chief surveyor, Khim Lal Gautam, said: “It will not be easy to work in that terrain, but we are confident our mission will be successful.”
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