HEIGHT OF MT EVEREST

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27501, 8 November 1954, Page 11

HEIGHT OF MT EVEREST

50ft Expected To Be

Added

(Rec. 10 pm.) NEW DELHI, Nov. 6. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing climbed about 50ft higher than the reference books show in climbing Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, the newspaper the “Statesman” said today. The “Statesman” said that revised figures raising the height of the world’s highest mountain now officially listed as 29,002 ft, will be announced in New Delhi “very soon.” ; Indian surveyors have calculated' that the new height' is expected to add about 50ft to the original figure, after working in the Everest region for three winters. Snow added several more feet to the distance the New Zealander and the Nepalese guide climbed. The new height is based on the time

when winter gales force most of the snow off the summit.

The Indian surveyors who calculated the new height set up stations 30 miles from the peak, but the survey team which first set Everest’s height in 1852 worked from the plains, more than 100 miles away. The “Statesman” said these early surveyors, perhaps over excited at the discovery of the world’s highest mountain, also made some computing errors, although most of the errors cancelled each other out.

Riot in Trieste.— ltalian riot police were called put today to guard the Trieste Town Hall, wnere 600 former employees of the British and the American forces staged a demonstration. They carried placards demanding new jobs in place of those they lost when the Allies handed Trieste over o the Italians on October 26.—Trieste, November 6.