A senior official from the Nepal government has said that the government is planning to shift the Everest base camp from the current location due to the increased risk of global warming where glaciers are melting and also due to human activity.
Situated at an altitude of 5,364 m the current base camp is located on the Khumbu glacier where around 1500 people gather every climbing season.
However, currently, the glacier is melting due to global warming and thus becoming unsafe for trekkers.
Nepal’s tourism department director Surya Prasad Upadhyaya in an informal meeting said that the officials are discussing shifting the Everest base camp from the present location.
However, no decision to this effect has been taken so far and the new location has also not been identified, he said.
Several scientists over years of research had warned about the thinning of mount Everest glaciers at an alarming rate.
Glaciers in the Himalayas make a significant contribution to water resources for millions of people in South Asia.
In February, researchers in Nepal warned that the highest glacier on the top of Mount Everest could disappear by the middle of this century as the 2,000-year-old ice cap on the world’s tallest mountain is thinning at an alarming rate.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) here had said that Everest has been losing ice significantly since the late 1990s, citing the latest research report.
It has been estimated that the ice in the South Cole glacier located at an elevation of 8,020 metres is thinning at a rate of nearly two-mitre per year.
