India to measure Mount Everest to see if earthquake shrank it

The Indian Government plans to measure the height of Mount Everest to end the speculation, that a powerful earthquake in 2015 may have caused it to shrink, an official said on Wednesday. The government’s mapping organisation Survey of India is set to send an expedition to the world’s tallest peak later this year, the agency’s […]

The Indian Government plans to measure the height of Mount Everest to end the speculation, that a powerful earthquake in 2015 may have caused it to shrink, an official said on Wednesday.

The government’s mapping organisation Survey of India is set to send an expedition to the world’s tallest peak later this year, the agency’s chief Swarna Subba Rao said.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake in the Himalayas on April 25, 2015 which devastated Nepal’s capital Kathmandu prompted scientists to wonder if the Everest’s height and position had been affected.

Rao said Survey of India would send an expedition to measure the mountain using two techniques: one team would climb the peak and use Global Positioning System (GPS),  to measure the height, while another team would use trigonometry to measure it from nearby locations.

Scientists say a satellite-based GPS calculation is a more accurate technique, but Rao said using different methods would help settle the issue once and for all.

No dates have been set yet for the 2017 expedition.

Rao said the mapping agency would collaborate with the Nepal government.

The mountain is located on the international border of China and Nepal.

Some scientists say they are already on top of the Everest question.

“Data from a satellite-mapping receiver that Chinese scientists had installed in 2005 revealed that Mount Everest was not taller or shorter,’’ geophysicist Lisa Wald wrote on the United States Geological Survey website after the quake.

“Instead, the motion on the fault had shifted the entire mountain three centimetres to the south-west, leaving the height of the mountain still at 8,848 meters.’’

Everest was given the title of the world’s tallest mountain in 1856 after surveys by various organisations including the Survey of India.

Survey of India was established in 1767 by the British to map the region as it colonised the Indian sub-continent. (dpa/NAN)