Chinese
authorities have indefinitely closed the base camp of its side of Mount Everest
to visitors, state media reported.
The Everest
base camp in Tibet will be closed to visitors without a climbing permit until
further notice as part of efforts to clean up the garbage that has accumulated
at the site.
Ordinary
tourists can only go as far as Rongbuk monastery which is slightly below the 5,200m
(17,060ft) base camp level. Those with climbing permits would be allowed to go
to the base camp or higher, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Climbers
collect waste from the Chinese north side of Mount Everest in 2017. The Everest
base camp in Tibet will be closed to visitors without a climbing permit until
further notice +3
The Chinese
base camp is gaining popularity among mountaineers as it is accessible by car,
whereas the Nepalese camp can only be reached by a two-week hike.
'The core
area will be closed for tourism for an indefinite period, mainly for ecological
conservation,' Tang Wu, from the tourism commission of Tingri county, told
video news site Pear. The 'core area' refers to the section over 5,200 metres
above sea level.
The official
announcement about the closure was made in December. It stated that three
clean-up operations last spring had collected 8.4 tonnes of rubbish from the
key area, including human faeces and mountaineering equipment climbers had left
behind.
Ordinary
tourists can only go as far as Rongbuk monastery (pictured) which is slightly
below the 5,200m (17,060ft) base camp level. Those with climbing permits would
be allowed to go to the base camp or higher, according to Xinhua News Agency
Authorities
have been implementing major clean-ups on the world's highest peak as the
number of visitors increases.
Parts of
Everest are in China and Nepal. The Chinese Mountaineering Association said
40,000 visited its base camp in 2015. A record 45,000 visited Nepal's base camp
between 2016 and 2017, according to Nepal's Ministry of Forests and Soil
Conservation.
China has
set up stations to sort, recycle and break down garbage from the mountain,
which includes cans, plastic bags, stove equipment, tents and oxygen tanks.
On the
Nepalese side, mountaineering expedition organisers have begun sending huge
trash bags with climbers during the spring climbing season to collect trash
that then can be winched by helicopters back to the base camp.
Authorities
have been implementing major clean-ups on the world's highest peak as the
number of visitors increases. In 2017, 648 people reached the top of Everest
In January,
authorities announced that they would limit the number of climbing permits each
year to 300.
This year's
clean-up efforts will include the recovery of the bodies of climbers who died
at more than 8,000m (26,246ft) up the mountain's 'death zone', where the air is
too thin to sustain human life.
In 2017, 648
people reached the top of Everest, including 202 from the Chinese north side,
according to the non-profit Himalayan Database.
Six people were
confirmed to have died on the mountain that year, one of them on the north
side.
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