Record number of climbers allowed to climb Mt. Qomolangma from south side

KATHMANDU, April 23 (Xinhua) -- A record-high number of climbers have received permits to scale the world's highest Mt. Qomolangma from the Nepali side in the spring climbing season, a Nepali official said on Sunday.

Nepal's Department of Tourism had issued 454 permits for climbers from 61 countries to conquer the 8,848.86-meter-high peak as of Friday, and over two-thirds of the climbers are women.

"This is the highest number of permits issued for Mt. Qomolangma in the history of climbing," Bigyan Koirala, an officer at the department's mountaineering section, told Xinhua on Sunday.

Of the climbers granted the permit, 96 are from China, 87 from the United States and 40 from India.

In 2021, 409 permits were issued for the tallest peak.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first ascent of Mt. Qomolangma that straddles Nepal and China, and the Department of Tourism is continuing to receive applications for summiting the peak, said Koirala.

The expedition for Mt. Qomolangma will start from the second week of May.

One has to pay 11,000 U.S. dollars to get the permit to scale the mountain from the south side.