Latest Himalayas Stories

The Himalaya, the "Roof of the World", source of the seven largest rivers of Asia are, like other mountain chains, suffering the effects of global warming. To assess the extent of melting of its 33,000 km2 of glaciers, scientists have been using a process they have been pioneering for some years. Satellite-imagery derived glacier surface topographies obtained at intervals of a few years were adjusted and compared. Calculations indicated that 915 km2 of Himalayan glaciers of the test region,...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A search party has found the body of one of Latin America's leading climbers, who went went missing 10 days ago on Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-highest peak, a diplomat said on Saturday. Jose Antonio Delgado, a 41-year-old Venezuelan, became stranded in bad weather at a height of 24,280 feet (7,400 meters) during his ascent of "The Killer Mountain," as Nanga Parbat is otherwise known. "All the elements suggest it is the body of Jose Antonio...

By Y.P. Rajesh NATHU LA, China-India Border (Reuters) - Asian giants India and China opened a Himalayan pass to border trade on Thursday, 44 years after a brutal frontier war shut down the ancient route. Senior officials from Tibet and the tiny northeastern Indian state of Sikkim cut a ribbon marking the border at the Nathu La pass as freezing rain poured down. Soldiers held up umbrellas instead of the automatic rifles they usually carry. A thick mist obscured visibility. Scores of...

By Y.P. Rajesh GANGTOK, India (Reuters) - Asian giants India and China resume border trade through a Himalayan pass on Thursday, hoping to build on warming relations and curb smuggling, 44 years after a brutal border war closed the ancient route. Businessmen from Tibet and the tiny northeastern Indian state of Sikkim will cross over into each other's territory through the border post at Nathu La pass -- which means the pass of the listening ear -- and trade at newly built marts on...

By Simon Denyer NATHU-LA, India (Reuters) - As the rain sweeps across the high Himalayan pass, a Chinese soldier arrives at the three strands of barbed wire which separate his country's territory from that of long-time rival India. But this soldier is no longer brandishing a gun, on this once most sensitive of borders between the world's two most populous countries. Instead he takes some video for his family back home and pauses to shake hands across the rusty fence. Just a few yards...

NEW DELHI -- Imagine a world without drinking water.It's a scary thought, but scientists say the 40 percent of humanity living in South Asia and China could well be living with little drinking water within 50 years as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, the region's main water source.The glaciers supply 303.6 million cubic feet every year to Asian rivers, including the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganga in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and Burma's...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Edmund Hillary, the first climber to conquer Mount Everest with his Sherpa guide, on Monday urged that the world's highest mountain be placed on the United Nations' list of endangered heritage sites because of the risks of climate change. Himalayan lakes are swelling from the runoff of melting glaciers, environmental campaigners warned as the 29th session of the U.N. Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee got under way...

A team of geophysicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a new technique to visualize the colliding rock bodies beneath the Himalaya with unprecedented detail, answering a number of questions about the world's highest mountains and providing a new tool for assessing earthquake hazards. The study, "Imaging the Indian Subcontinent Beneath the Himalaya" appears in the June 30 issue of the journal Nature. Anne Sheehan, Roger Bilham, Vera Schulte-Pelkum and Gaspar...

BEIJING (AFP) -- Chinese scientists warn the fragile environment of the Tibet-Qinghai plateau, known as the roof of the world, is under serious threat from global warming and pollution.Covering more than 360,000 square kilometers (140,000 square miles), the plateau is the cradle of three key Chinese rivers -- the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang -- and home to many rare animals, plants and medicinal herbs.But a decades-long study by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Study Institute of the Chinese Academy...

BEIJING, (AFP) -- A team of Chinese scientists began to remeasure Mount Everest for the first time in 20 years, checking theories that it is growing one centimeter (0.4 inch) annually, state media said. Six scientists, four mountaineers and four Sherpa guides will use radar and global positioning equipment to re-survey the peak, the world's highest, said expedition head Zhang Jiangqi. The official height of the mountain, straddling China's border with Nepal, is currently 8,848 meters (29,500...