SYANGBOCHE, Dec 3: Prime Minister and 23 ministers have reached Lukla on Thursday for the Everest cabinet meeting scheduled at Kala Patthar, near base camp of the World’s highest peak, to raise awareness on climate change.
All ministers except Bidhya Bhandari, Indra Dhungel and Rajendra Mahato have reached airport in Lukla in helicopters. Defense Minister Bhandari is unable to attend due to health reasons and Minster for Commerce and Supplies Rajendra Mahato is in Geneva attending the ministerial meeting of WTO.[break]
State Minister for Science and Technology Dhungel chose not to attend.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has also reached Lukla. He flew there from Ilam late Thursday afternoon.
The accompanying journalists have reached Syangboche, the place 12,340 ft above the sea level. The cabinet will held a press conference after the meeting. Nepal Television and BBC Television will broadcast the conference live on Friday afternoon.
A medical team including four doctors is deployed for medical checkup before the ministers fly to Kala Patthar on Friday while a team of Himalayan Rescue Association is ready.
Kala Patthar is at an altitude of 18,192 ft, while Gorakshep is situated at 17,200 ft.
The meeting is being held to draw attention to the threat to the Himalayas from the climate change.
690 tourists stranded in Kathmandu and Manthali due to bad weat...
Scientists say the Himalayan glaciers are melting at an alarming rate and creating huge glacial lakes that threaten to burst, devastating mountain communities downstream. They warn that the glaciers could disappear within decades, bringing drought to large swathes of Asia, where 1.3 billion people depend on rivers that originate in the Himalayas.
The meeting has drawn comparisons with a stunt in the Maldives where ministers held an underwater cabinet meeting on October 17 to highlight the dangers of rising sea levels for the island nation.
