International News
China imposes age limits on climbing Everest
Posted on: Fri June 11, 2010
International Highlights
BEIJING: China is to impose new age limits on mountaineers seeking to climb in Tibet, authorities said on Thursday, after an American 13-year-old became the youngest person ever to scale Mount Everest.
The new age limit will come into effect when the climbing season restarts in September, an official at the China Tibet Mountaineering Association told AFP, saying it was for the safety of the climbers .
The official declined to give details of the new rules but expedition organisers in neighbouring Nepal said China was planning to restrict permits to climbers between the ages of 18 and 60, except in exceptional circumstances.
Mount Everest straddles the border between China and Nepal, where mountaineering authorities already restrict licences for the world s highest peak to climbers over the age of 16.
China does not currently have an age limit and American teenager Jordan Romero carried out his controversial ascent of the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain from the Tibet side.
Around 3,000 people have climbed Everest since it was first conquered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. But hundreds have died trying, many of them falling to their deaths or succumbing to altitude sickness during the gruelling climb.
Nepal-based Ang Tshering Sherpa, whose company Asian Trekking organises expeditions across the Himalayas, welcomed China s move to impose age restrictions.
Courtesy : The News