Has the height of Mount Everest increased?

 Has the height of Mount Everest increased?

KATHMANDU : Government of Nepal is soon planning to announce the new height of Mount Everest. The cabinet meeting of Ministers agreed to the proposal of Ministry of Land Management about revealing the new height of world's tallest mountain.

In May 2019, two government surveyors from Nepal and China successfully scaled Mount Everest collecting data for the measurement of height.The government of Nepal decided to measure height of Everest amid debates that the height may have been changed due to various reasons including devastating earthquake of 2015. The current height of Everest is 8848m.

According to the sources, the height of Everest may have been increased.

Nepal and China will jointly announce the new height of Everest soon. 

How Nepal did the first time measurement on Mt. Everest height

 How Nepal did the first time measurement on Mt. Everest height

Introduction of Mt. Everest 

Among the Himalaya mountain range, Mount Everest is a Highest peak in the world. Everest is located between two countries Nepal and Tibet (China). 

Everest makes an elevation of 8,850  meters (29,035 feet) and which is the world’s tallest mountain. 

In the 19 century, a former Surveyor General of India named mountain George Everest. 

Now it is named Mount Everest but its Tibetan name is Chomolungma, which means the “Mother Goddess of the World”. 

And the Nepali name is Sagarmatha on which “Sagar” means sky and “Matha” means head.

Nepal has been trying to measure the height of Everest from first when it was recognized as the tallest peak of the world. 

The height of Everest has been changing with advances in survey technology. For two years Nepal has been working to measure the height of the mountain. 

After the completion of the survey, China will also be joining for the announcement of height. 

Mount Everest 8848m High, which is famous for Everest Expedition. More than 1000 people climbed Mt. Everest every year. 

Every climber dreams to reach the top of the world.

How was Mt. Everest first measured?

The First Mount Everest height was measured by the team of India. The survey of India had determined the height of Mount Everest in 1847 and 

declared the height as 8778m above from sea level and identified Everest as the world’s tallest peak.

Ways of measuring height

There are many different ways to calculate the height of different Mountains. As Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain on the earth, 

different ways are used to calculate the elevation of Mt Everest. Height can be measured from mean sea level, from the depth of the ocean, 

or even the distance from the center of the Earth. As the planet is not perfectly round so some Andean peaks would actually be taller.

How much did Nepal spend to measure Mt. Everest’s height?

Nepal has started its survey for the measurement of Everest. The survey was started using sophisticated methodology including readings 

from ground-penetrating radar and a Global Navigation Satellite System from the top of the mountain which requires a lot of money. The Department of Nepal has spent $1.3 million dollars on this survey.

Many scientific instruments and technology worth 80 million have been donated by the Seiss company.

The organization which helped to measure height?

This ongoing measurement height of Mount Everest is measured by Nepal itself. While now Nepal has been doing a survey on its own. 

From Nepal, different departments are helping for this project like the Ministry of Land reform, the Survey Department, and the Foreign Ministry.

Although Nepal is doing a survey on its own, as the survey completes China will also join in announcing the height of Mount Everest.

Surveys

1847 AD The first survey was done by India which declared the height of Mt. Everest 8,778m and mentioned it as the highest peak of the world.

1849-1950 AD Again the survey group from India has re-measured the height of Everest from the Nepal side and declared the height as 8,840m.

1954 AD  BL Gulati Are-measures the height of Mt. Everest who was from the Survey group of India and declared as 8,848m, which is the authentic height adopted till now.

1975 AD  Now the height was measured from different sides and by different countries. China measured the height from its side and declared the height as 8,848.13m.

1999 AD  Brad Washburn who was from the Boston Museum of science measured the Height of Everest from a different way. Bread Washburn uses GPS and Radar detects the height and declares the height as 8,850m.

2005 AD Again China has re-measured the height of Everest. But this time China has measured the rock-height. And the rock-height was declared as 8,844.43m.

2015 AD Research by the Chinese government has said that Everest has moved 3cm to the south-west due to the earthquake of 2015.

2017 AD Nepal first declared the height of Mount Everest. And started the survey of measuring the height of Everest. Nepal has started measuring.

2020 AD Nepal tried to declare the height of Mount Everest and aimed to end the 2-century long controversy.

Conclusion

However, Everyone needs to know the height of the tallest mountain on Earth. Many surveys are conducted in the 19th century. 

But now Nepal is doing a survey on its own and Nepal has the aim to end the 2-century long controversy of the world. And while announcing the height of 

Mt. Everest china will also be joining for the announcement.

The trail to Everest repaired during lockdown

 The trail to Everest repaired during lockdown

SOLUKHUMBU  : The communities of Khumbu has been using nine months of pandemic in tourism to clean and upgrade the trail to the world's tallest mountain. The mountain guides, porters and hotel entrepreneurs who did not got any clients on 2020 were engaged on cleaning, repairing and upgrading trails and bridges. 

Complains of visitors last year about poor state of trails, waste management, lack of signage etc were addressed.

The youths of Khunde, Khumjung, Thame and Namche was self motivated to conserve and maintain cultural heritage. The mani walls and chaitya along with the trail are painted and repaired.

The women's group of Khumjung utilized their lockdown to cleanup neighbourhood and put a place in waste management that has set example for other communities.

A new helipad has been constructed in Namche during pandemic.

Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner

       Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner

With a new bridge, Khumbu region has become accessible by land, an alternative to flying to the precarious Lukla airport.

Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner

    The newly constructed bridge over Dudh Koshi river at Orlang Ghat, Solukhumbu. 

                    Photo Courtesy: Khumbu Pasang lhamu Rural Municipality

Pasang Tshering Sherpa of the village of Khumjung in the Everest region was thrilled to hear that a motorable bridge over Dudh Koshi river to complete a road link to the Everest region was inaugurated on Saturday.

“Friends, if you are buying cars, please consider buying one that can roll on the roads of Solukhumbu. The time when we will be able to have breakfast in Kathmandu and dine in the Everest region is not far,” Sherpa posted on his Facebook page.

Khumbu, also known as Everest region, the dream destination for many over the world, will soon become more accessible. As of now, the popular way to get to the top of the world is to take a 25-minute flight to Lukla’s Tenzing-Hillary airport and then trek towards Everest.

But the construction of the bridge over the Dudh Koshi river at Orlang Ghat of Solukhumbu is a landmark for connectivity.

With access only by air, the Everest region is perhaps one of the most expensive places in the world to visit because all supplies have to be flown in or carried on people’s backs, deterring potential tourists, especially domestic ones.

A single cooking gas cylinder costs around Rs15,000, as it is ferried by porters and mules. A trekker has to shell out around Rs300 for a cup of tea. Air freight charges from Kathmandu to Lukla stand at around $1.50 or about Rs180 per kg.

Locals from the region had long been calling on the government to construct the road, citing high costs of commodities, flight service unpredictability and dangerous flights to Lukla Airport, which is considered one of the most dangerous airports in the world.

“Now, vehicles can roll up to Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality ward number 1,” said Binod Bhattarai, chief administrative officer of Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality.

Although Lukla, 2,860 metres, lies at ward 2, motorcars will not go directly up to the airport.

“We have planned to extend the road up to ward number 2 by the end of this fiscal year, and up to Chaurikharka in the next fiscal year,” said Bhattarai.

The road will end in Chaurikharka, at about 2,800 metres after going as high as 3,000 metres.

Chaurikharka is about a day’s walk from Lukla and a day away from Chaurikharka lies Namche Bazaar, the largest town in the Khumbu region. From Namche it’s five days’ walk to Everest Base Camp.

The government had first decided to open a track to the Everest region after more than 3,000 tourists were stranded in Lukla in November 2011 after adverse weather conditions halted flights from Kathmandu for six consecutive days.

Flight cancellation due to adverse weather is a recurring problem and in the monsoon season, there are no flights to Lukla.

During the tourist season in spring and autumn, hundreds of tourists are often stranded at Lukla airport as no flights can land due to bad weather and high winds. Tourists are forced to return to Kathmandu by helicopter paying up to $500 per person, again weather permitting, as against $180 for an aircraft ticket.

In case of bad weather, the other option for trekkers now is to walk up to Jiri, retracing the footsteps of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa during their historic ascent to the top of the world on May 29, 1953. Jiri to Surkhe, an hour’s walk from Lukla, is a nine-day walk.

It was the Himalayan Trust, the charity Hillary set up, that built the airport in Lukla in 1964.

Dubbed the Highway to Everest, the project started in 2014, but it hit a roadblock after the 2015 earthquakes.

After the 2017 elections that installed local governments under a federal dispensation, Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality took the initiative to take the road project forward.

According to Dip Kumar Basnet, the municipal overseer for the road project, of the 77-km Salleri-Surkhe-Chaurikharka two-lane asphalt road, track opening works of 58 km have been completed so far.

Salleri is the headquarters of Solukhumbu district. The Kathmandu-Khurkot-Ghurmi-Salleri road section is around 270 km.

If things go as planned, people will be able to drive to the Everest region, crossing highlands and in view of panoramic mountain ranges within a day from Kathmandu, according to Basnet.

“If there is no shortage of budget, the project can be completed within one and a half years,” he told the Post. “The black-topping works will also begin soon.”

Chief administrative officer Bhattarai said they would require another around Rs100 million for the remaining track opening works.

Once the road is completed, said Basnet, the region is likely to receive domestic tourists and trekkers in droves, as the road facility will make commodities and travel cheaper.

“The road will bring tens of thousands of people to the Everest region,” said Basnet.

At present, annually over 57,000 foreign trekkers and mountaineers visit the region, and tourism entrepreneurs believe the road access could take that number close to 500,000, including domestic and international tourists.

The numbers, however, could be damaging for the fragile environment of the Khumbu region.

But Bhattarai said they are conscious about the degradation of the Khumbu environment.

“As part of the local government initiative, petrol and diesel vehicles will be allowed only up to Khari Khola,” said Bhattarai.

Khari Khola, at an altitude of 2,140 metres, is two days’ walk before Lukla.

“From there, only electric vehicles will be allowed to Chaurikharka,” he said. “It’s part of the government’s initiative to keep the Everest region emission-free.” 

A new road linking Lukla to the rest of the country will transform the region, not all of it for the better

 Nepal building a highway to Everest

A new road linking Lukla to the rest of the country will transform the region, not all of it for the better

November 4, 2020

Excavators at work on Thamdada, 24km south of Lukla, despite the fact that the Khumbu Municipality has run out of money to complete the Phaplu-Chaurikharka road. All photos: SURENDRA PHUYAL

Excavators are clawing through sheer cliff faces, rocks tumble down to the Dudh Kosi below, and once in a while the sound of dynamite echoes in the gorge. 

A new road linking the town of Chaurikharka just below Lukla to the rest of the country is due to open by December 2022, and work is going on despite the pandemic.

Although the road will not enter the Sagarmatha National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it will make trekking and climbing in the Everest region more accessible. But it will turn Lukla airfield largely redundant, while locals fear an erosion of the region’s Sherpa culture, architecture and lifestyle.

On the Chinese side of Mt Everest, there is a highway from Lhasa right up to North Base Camp below the Rongbuk Glacier at 5,200m. Since 2016, it has become vital to transport goods and people for expeditions to the world’s highest mountain from the north. 

Kathmandu is already linked through a 277km highway to Phaplu of Solukhumbu district, which is a two-day trek below Lukla. Work started on the 77km road linking Phaplu to Chaurikharka six years ago, but progress has been slow due to difficult terrain, delays due to the 2015 earthquake and Blockade, and lack of money.

This means that for at least the next two years, trekkers, climbers, and local people will either have to trek from the nearest road-head near Phaplu or Jiri-Shivalaya-Bamti Bhandar in Ramechhap district or as many do, take a 30-minute flight to Lukla from Kathmandu.

                      Sunkoshi Bridge at Harkapur on the highway from Kathmandu to Phaplu. 

Like all infrastructure projects in Nepal, completion of this road is delayed. Khumbu municipality has run out of money for the remaining 24km dirt track to Chaurikharka from Thamdada. 

The completion of the road was the pet project of the former Chair of Khumbu Rural Municipality, late Nim Dorje Sherpa who died in June. He believed that connecting Phaplu to Lukla would further lift living standards, bring down prices, and reduce the drudgery of his Sherpa people.  

“It’s still our top priority project,” says Lhakpa Tsheri Sherpa of Khumbu Municpality, adding that the construction has been delayed somewhat by the Covid-19 crisis which has also devastated the region’s trekking and climbing income this year. 

Khumbu used to earn Rs200 million a year just from trekking and climbing fees, not counting the what visitors paid for lodging, food and portering. This year, the income is down to Rs60 million.

“It is because of this loss of income that the construction of this last 24km stretch slowed down,” explained Binod Bhattarai, Chief Administrative Officer of Khumbu Municipality. “Now there is hardly any money to complete the project. We are struggling.”

The Municipality has decided to open Khumbu for trekking and climbing even though nine Covid-19 cases were detected in Namche Bazar last month, and it could have spread. Local people have stopped trekkers from going above Pangboche on the Everest Trail.

South of Lukla on Thamdada, bulldozers are at work on the track, while flights to and from Lukla buzz overhead all morning. The road alignment then drops precipitously to the river and Surke helipad below Lukla, before a final ascent to Chaurikharka.  

Bhattarai is not giving up, he says: “The Province 1 government has assured financial support for this project, and other officials and MPs, too, have said that the work need not stop. So, we are hoping that we can make up for a lost time.”  

Not everyone in Khumbu is happy with the road. They think it will spoil the region’s pristine beauty and fragile culture, as has happened when roads have reached other parts of remote Nepal in recent years. 

Sonam Gyalzen Sherpa from Namche, who is chair of the Sagarmatha National Park Buffer Zone Management Committee, says the economy has to be balanced with ecology. 

“The Road will enter the boundary of the national park from Surke and it will surely have some adverse impact on local culture and nature,” he said. “But since the Khumbu is remote and needs a road we are trying to ensure that the EIA is carefully done and its recommendations are strictly adhered to. It will be a big challenge for sure. We are currently discussing how we can mitigate damage.” 

However, there are also strong voices in support of the road. A cylinder of cooking gas that costs Rs1,500 in Kathmandu is Rs15,000 in Gokyo or Lobuje in Upper Khumbu. The cylinders have to be taken on a 12 hour truck ride to Phaplu, then transferred to mule trains that take several days to get up to Namche. Sugar, salt and other food items cost several times more than in Kathmandu.

Zopkyo trains carrying gas cylinders from Phaplu to Lukla. Higher up on the Everest trail, the cylinders cost ten times more than in Kathmandu.

“The road will surely make our life easier,” says Ang Jangmu Sherpa who runs a lodge in Debuje on the Everest Trail. “It will encourage more Nepalis to come trekking, and make certain goods such as cooking gas more affordable.”

Says Ang Rita Sherpa of Lukla’s Nunbur Hotel: “Even if there is a road, most foreign trekkers  are not going to travel to Lukla on a rough 14-hour road, but it will raise living standards in Khumbu.”

“With careful planning to reduce environmental impact and maintain the quality of the trekking experience, tourism in Upper Khumbu can benefit from the new vehicular road access to Chaurikharka,” says Sonia Miyahara, Managing Director of Hotel Everest View.

Yaks and zopkyos carry goods up the Everest Trail near Namche Bazar. Locals hope the road to Lukla will make essential items cheaper.

Besides the lack of money, the road has several other terrain-related hurdles. A dozen bridges need to be built across the Dudh Kosi gorge with a big one in Orlang Ghat that will cost Rs80 million.

Locals lament that despite the central government bragging about Mt Everest and Khumbu as an adventure destination and collecting revenue from fees, it has not chipped in for the road project.

“The federal government has done very little to help despite us knocking on doors of various ministries,” said the Municipality’s Lhakpa Tsheri Sherpa. 

Locals are hoping that even if the 10m wide highway is not fully completed, the track will allow trucks and jeeps to negotiate the final stretch by 2022.

Mules descend from Lukla to Phaplu at Paiya village along the partially completed track.

In Kathmandu, Infrastructure Minister Basata Kumar Nembang told Nepali Times that the federal government was committed to the project: “The Phaplu-Lukla road is one of the plans we have given high priority even in this pandemic situation. That road project will go ahead as demanded by local representatives.”

Whatever the arguments for and against the road, one thing it will do is remove the need for travelers to be stuck, sometimes for weeks in Lukla, due to bad weather.  

World's second-highest bungee comes into operation

 04th Oct 2020 

The world's second-highest bungee and swing have come into operation. The adventure activities have been operated from 500 meters long suspension bridge over the Kaligandaki river joining Parbat and Baglung districts of Nepal. The bungee, swing, and ski-cycling are constructed by The Cliff Pvt. Ltd.

The ski-cycling is first in Nepal and swing is in catapult style. The adventure activities are constructed at a cost of around 280 million. The adventure activities have been opened for visitors from Monday. The opening price of Bungee and swing is NRs. 7,000 for Nepali nationals and USD 210 for foreigners.

The bungee has been installed in the middle of a 525m long bridge above the Kaligandaki River. The distance from the river to the bungee is 228m or 748 feet. This bungee is the second tallest in the world after 764 feet tall bungee in Macau. 

New Height of Mt. Everest soon to be Announced

  New Height of Mt. Everest soon to be Announced

The new height of Mt. Everest is now soon to be announced by both Nepal and China. In 2019 when the Chinese President visited Nepal, both countries had signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” agreement to announce the new height of Mt. Everest.

For the first time in 1955, the Indian team surveys the height of Mt. Everett to be 8848m (29,029ft) above sea level which is still the official height of Everest till this date. Also in 1975, the Chinese survey had also confirmed the same height. Similarly, some unofficial survey was also done after that. In 1992, the Italian Survey lopped seven feet off the standard height, measuring it at 29,022 feet above sea level. But again in 1999, American scientists pushed the height a little higher, saying the mountain reached up to 29,035 feet above sea level. But on these all surveys, Nepal had almost no any role.

So, due to this confusion and not having a role in any of those surveys, Nepal Government announces to measure the new height of Everest in collaboration with China. It is also believed that after the massive earthquake in 2015, Mt. Everest may have been shrunk which made more compulsion to measure the height again.

By taking the Bay of Bengal as its Sea level, the Nepalese side had already measured the height of Everest. But due to covid and some other reasons, the Chinese survey was delayed. Now with recent news, we knew that the measurement from the Chinese side had also been completed by taking the Yellow sea as its sea level. So within a few days, both the Nepalese & Chinese Government will announce the new height of Mt. Everest.  

The Qatari Royal Family entered the base camp on a trip to climb Mount Amadablam.

  

The Qatari Royal Family entered the base 

camp on a trip to climb Mount Amadablam. 

Kathmandu: A Qatar Royal Family team, including Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani of Qatar, 

has reached the 6,812meter Mount Amadablam base camp, located in the Everest area of Eastern Nepal. 

The team is going to 

try to climb Mount Amadablam. 

It is estimated that the team, comprising 14 members from different countries, 

will hit the summit of Mount Amadablam in the next two weeks.

Ishwori Poudel, managing director of the expedition's Himalayan Guide Nepal, 

says the team reached the base camp on Sunday afternoon. 

Sherpas are currently repairing the ropes and ladders. The team is expected to 

complete the task by two weeks if the weather is favorable, "Says, Poudel." 

Last week, the team left 

Kathmandu for Lukla on Monday.

Bicycle tour to revive tourism in Nepal

 Bicycle tour to revive tourism in Nepal 

KATHMANDU: Nepal's travel agencies have joined hands by organizing a bicycle tour to revive the COVID-19 impacted tourism industry in Nepal. 

In support of the Nepal Tourism Board, the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN), the Nepal  Mountaineering Association (NAM), and the Nepal Travel and Tour Association (NATTA) have arranged a bicycle tour.

The Nepal Bicycle Tour began with cycling from the office of the Nepal Tourism Board. Mr. Dhananjaya Regmi, the board's CEO, saw the cyclists off. Cyclists can ride from the western part of Mahendranagar to the eastern part of Pashupatinagar. The bike tour will be organized by renowned cyclist and Everest summit man Pushkar Shah. In their three-week-long sojourn, the riders 

would travel a distance of 1624 KM. Board member Deepak Mahat said that this bike tour will help the tour help breathe new life into the tourism industry affected by COVID-19 and promote the Board's message throughout the nation as the cyclist pedal across the world.

Mount Everest Empties In Nepal as Covid-19 Hits Tourism

 As infections spread, the Himalayan country's economy has taken a blow from a lack of climbers and a plunge in remittances. 

KATHMANDU, Nepal. Nepal attracted so many mountain climbers just last year that a human traffic jam of hundreds of mountaineers snarled a trail to the top of Mount Everest in puffy jackets.The crowds were evidence of how rapidly, some said, the alpine tourism industry in Nepal had developed, becoming a lifeline for the region. Tourism brought more than $2 billion to Nepal, one of the poorest countries 

in Asia, last year and employed a million people, from porters to pilots.Much of it was halted by the pandemic. The trails snaking through the Himalayas, including those leading to Everest Base Camp, are abandoned. This fall season, fewer than 150 climbers have arrived, immigration officials reported, down from thousands last year. Countless Sherpas and seasoned mountain guides were put out of business, allowing many to plant barley or graze yaks to live on the empty slopes.

Many Nepalis believe that this nation might be held back for years by the cumulative impact of the coronavirus and the hammer blow to the economy. 

Upendra Lama, an out-of-work mountain porter who now depends on donations from a small aid group to feed himself and his baby, said, 'I always think I'm going to die of hunger before Corona kills me.' How long will this continue?

While similar questions are being raised by the whole community, Nepal has little tools to help people cope. Covid-19 cases are gradually growing, and with about 1,000 intensive-care beds for a population of 30 million, once they fall into a serious condition, the authorities have told people who get sick to stay home. Out of sight and undetected, an undisclosed number can die. 

It is better to see the economic ruins. Hotels and teahouses are boarded up, sticking to the mountain faces. For the near future, pubs, gear shops and even some of the most famous watering holes in the capital, Kathmandu, have disappeared, including the Tom and Jerry bar, which acted as a backpacker's beacon for decades. 

"There is no hope in sight," the owner of the bar, Puskar Lal Shrestha, said. 

Another casualty has been remittances from Nepalis working abroad. When times were healthy, millions of people sent money back from across Asia, from the Persian Gulf countries in particular.

Last year, total remittances were almost $9 billion. Nepal relies on remittances more than just about any other country.

Many Nepalis held unglamorous jobs, such as security guards or maids. But the money was good, especially for people from a country where the average income is the equivalent of $3 a day.

Now many of them have been laid off. Some have been sent home, while others remain trapped in foreign countries, with no work and the specter of deportation hanging over them.

The pause in remittances has frightened many families. Several people who were interviewed said they had been forced to move to cheaper apartments and to take their children out of private schools and send them instead to government schools they considered inferior.

“If the world does not get a corona vaccine soon, our remittances, which contribute around 30 percent to the national G.D.P., will completely dry up,” said Sujit Kumar Shrestha, the general secretary of Nepal’s Association of Foreign Employment Agencies.

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As the economy ails, hospitals are filling up. Doctors say that the wealthy and the politically connected are monopolizing hospital beds, leaving the poor who get sick with nowhere to go.

“Our health system is weak, and the monitoring mechanism is even weaker,” said Dr. Rabindra Pandey, who works for Nepal Arogya Kendra, an independent organization of public health experts. “Well-connected and wealthy people can easily access private hospitals and afford their fees, but many of the poor are dying.”

With winter fast approaching and the Hindu festival season in full swing, public health experts warn that Nepal’s Covid-19 crisis is about to get worse. The country has reported around 175,000 infections, roughly the same rate per capita as India next door. And although its reported deaths remain fewer than 1,000, testing remains low and the consensus among Nepali doctors is that virus infections and deaths are many times higher.

The virus has reached its tentacles into rural areas and remote towns that just a few months ago had few or no reported cases. Government officials have been accused of exploiting the pandemic to make money. A parliamentary committee is looking into accusations that officials close to the prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, inflated prices of key medical supplies. The officials have denied the allegations.

In some areas, Covid-19 has cut through entire families.

Dharma Kumar Shrestha, an elderly man who ran a small business importing clothes, checked into a hospital in southern Nepal in late September to seek treatment for asthma, the beginning of a chain of events that killed nearly half his family. He caught Covid-19 in the hospital, family members said. Two of his sons who visited him then got infected.

With the hospitals filling up, and the authorities ordering people to recover at home, the sons went back to their village. They got sicker. When one called for an ambulance, the driver refused, afraid of getting sick himself.

Within two weeks, Mr. Dharma and two sons had died.

“What could be worse news than this?” asked Suman Shrestha, a younger relative. “Let’s pray no one else has to face our fate.”

Health experts say that many of Nepal’s infections have come from Nepali workers traveling back from India. India is now No. 2 in the world in terms of reported Covid-19 infections — around eight million, right behind the United States.

Nepal lives in India’s shadow. Its economy, strategic affairs, and overall health are constantly rearranged by what happens in its huge neighbor to the south.

Partly because of the boost from tourism, Nepal’s economy had been growing faster than India’s, at nearly 6 percent in 2019. Usually, at this time of year, jet after jet would thread the mountain ranges by Kathmandu’s international airport and disgorge thousands of well-heeled tourists, including many Indians, eager to hike in the Annapurnas or up to Mount Everest base camp.

Last year, more than a million tourists visited. The average spent more than $50 a day.

Tourism officials expect that at least 800,000 people employed in the tourism industry will lose their jobs. Among the first to go, officials said, will be the 50,000 or so high-altitude guides, Sherpas and others in the trekking ecosystem. Some have started protesting on the streets of Kathmandu, urging the government to give them loans to help feed their families and threatening to vandalize the tourism board’s office if they get no relief.

“Guides, once known as the real agents of tourism, have been left in the lurch,” said Prakash Rai, a climbing guide who participated in the recent protests. “We have no means to survive this crisis.”

Not long ago, some people inside and outside the country were saying that Nepal’s tourism industry had spun out of control. Nepal was so eager to welcome climbers, these critics said, that the Everest scene had become unruly and dangerous.

Despite the rise in Covid-19 cases, other parts of the economy, like manufacturing, are trying to sputter back to life, and some schools have reopened. Travel restrictions imposed this spring and summer have been eased. A mass exodus has begun from the cities to far-flung villages as Nepalis head home to celebrate the Hindu holidays of Dashain and Tihar.

Yet such movement is bypassing tourist areas.

Pokhara, a beautiful lakeside city in the center of the country, has become a ghost town. At this time last year, it teemed with trekkers.

But as Baibob Poudel, a Pokhara hotelier, said, “I haven’t seen a single foreigner here since April.”

Ghandruk Restricted to Visit until 21 November.

 Ghandruk Restricted to Visit until 21 November. 

KATHMANDU: Ghandruk is a popular tourist destination which is restricted to tourist visits until 21 November. This decision was taken by the Ghandruk Tourism Management Committee in view of the growing number of COVID-19 events. 

Mr. Kasam Gurung, Chairman of the Tourism Management Committee, said that both domestic and domestic visitors were barred from visiting Ghandruk until 21 November. Before then, all the hotels and lodges will be closed.He added that the required decisions would be made after 21 November at a meeting. 

Ghandruk is a famous Gurung village located 32 km from Pokhara in the north-west. It is the trekking gateway to the Annapurna region 

, particularly the Annapurna Base Camp and the Annapurna Sanctuary.