Nepal is preparing to move the base camp for Mount Everest after it emerged that the current location is becoming unsafe for continued habitation due to global warming and human activity, according to a BBC News report.

The camp, which is used by over a thousand people in the spring climbing season, is located on the thinning Khumbu glacier.

Attempts are being made to identify a new site at a lower altitude, BBC quoted a Nepali official as saying. Researchers say swift melting destabilises the glacier, while climbers complain that crevasses are increasingly appearing at base camp.

According to Taranath Adhikari, director general of Nepal’s tourism department, the camp currently sits at an altitude of 5,364m, while the new one will be 200 to 400 metres lower.

The plans follow the recommendations of a committee formed by Nepal’s government to facilitate and monitor mountaineering in the Everest region.

Scientists say the Khumbu glacier, like many others in the Himalayan range, is rapidly melting due to global warming, among other factors. The BBC report quoted a 2018 study by researchers from Leeds University, which showed that the part of the glacier close to base camp was thinning at a rate of 1m per year.

Most of it is covered by rocky debris but there are also areas of exposed ice, called ice cliffs, and it is the melting of those cliffs that destabilises the glacier the most, researcher Scott Watson told the BBC.

“When ice cliffs melt like that, the debris of boulder and rocks that are on the top of the ice cliffs move and fall and then the melting also creates water bodies,” he said.

“So we see increased rock falls and movement of melt-water on the surface of the glaciers that can be hazardous.”

Mr Watson told the BBC that the glacier was losing 9.5 million cubic metres of water per year.

Mountaineers and the Nepali authorities say a stream, located in the middle of the base camp, has been steadily expanding, while crevasses and cracks on the surface of the glacier are appearing more often.

Everest base camp manager for the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, Tshering Tenzing Sherpa, said that loud noises were frequently reported, ostensibly caused by moving ice or falling rocks. Before putting up a tent at base camp, he said it was necessary to flatten the rocky surface covering the ice, and to repeat this from time to time as the glacier moved.

Published in Dawn,June 19th, 2022