Nepal wants help to measure Mount Everest

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KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Nepal says it will seek help from international researchers to help settle a long-running dispute about the height of Mount Everest.

China has long argued about how the peak's height should be measured, but in 2010 the two countries appeared to have agreed to Nepal's figure of 29,028 feet.

But as the disagreement has never been fully settled and shifting geology in the region also adds confusion, Nepal says it wants international help to support a new, official measurement.

With outside funding, expertise and equipment, it said, it hopes to complete the measurement and settle the matter with an agreed figure within the next couple of years.

"Since we lack the capacity to do the job on our own, we are preparing a project plan with the request for donors and we will soon be sending them out," Krishna Raj BC, director general of Nepal's Survey Department, told BBC News.

"Funding and technology have been the main constraints. We don't have, for instance, the equipment that works in a place with -45C (minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature," he said.

China, which rules Tibet, on whose borders the Himalayas also sit, has argued the world's highest mountain was nearly 13 feet shorter than Nepal's official figure, contending it should be measured to its rock height.

Nepal has insisted Everest's snow height should also be included, as with other peaks in the world.

A fresh measurement has become necessary to "set the record straight once and for all," Nepalese officials said.