(ANSA) - ROME, 08 DEC - Mount Everest measures in height exactly 8,848.86 meters: it has officially 'grown' by 86 centimeters from the last universally accepted measurement, which dates back to 1954, the year of the first mountaineering conquest of the peak and which placed the "roof of the world" at 8,848 meters above sea level.
The new data was announced jointly by China and Nepal, the two countries that divide the mountain and whose border passes right through the summit.
An official announcement is 'agreed', after several years of disagreements between the two countries, with Beijing intending to stop measuring the altitude at the rocky summit and Kathmandu instead insisting that the ice cap covering the summit should also be included, at the cost of a greater fickleness.
Therefore, in 2005, Beijing had 'decreed' that almost 4 meters of ice should be removed, reducing the height of Everest to 8,844.43 meters.
The agreement between the two neighboring countries on the new measurement was announced last year during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal.
Geologically very 'young', the Himalayas, born 50-60 million years ago, are still growing due to the tectonic forces of the earth's crust.
However, geologists believe that the summit of Everest also rises by nearly half a meter every century or so.
(HANDLE).