Ice on Everest is thinning at an alarming rate – and perhaps soon the authorities of Nepal you will have to move the place of the base camp, from where tourists begin their ascent to the greatest peak in the world. The world's tallest extreme landmark, which kills many people every year trying to climb it, is threatened by global warming and human activity, making its current location unsafe, a senior official in Kathmandu said.
Government of Nepal is considering relocating Mount Everest base camp. The current base camp, located at an altitude of 5'364 meters on the Khumbu Glacier, where more than 1'500 people gather every climbing season, is becoming unsafe due to the rapidly thinning glacier. Surya Prasad Upadhyaya, Director of the Department of Tourism of Nepal, announced such data to local media. However, the exact decision on the transfer has not yet been made.
However, several studies show that the glaciers near the summit of Everest are thinning at an alarming rate. In February, researchers from Nepal warned that Everest's tallest glacier could disappear by the middle of this century. The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has stated that Everest has been losing ice significantly since the late 1990s. It has been estimated that the ice in the South Cole glacier, located at an altitude of 8020 meters, is thinning at a rate of almost two meters per year.
OUR INFORMATION: Everest, aka Chomolungma, is considered the highest mountain in the world – its height over 8.8 thousand meters. It bears the honorary title of “roof of the world” – and is also the most extreme tourist attraction, since in the “pre-Covid” years over 500 thousand tourists arrived to try to take this height – so the mountain can be considered one of the most visited attractions on the planet.
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