A mounting climbing fever is obvious to be mounting this spring as many as 30 mountaineering expeditions from home and abroad have registered and arrived at southwestern China's Tibet Autonomous Region, for attempts on peaks at the Himalayas.

With a total of over 300 members, the teams are from South Korea, the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, Ireland and South Africa, according to a spokesman of the Tibet Mountaineering Association (TMA).

"More expeditions are expected to arrive here," Zhang Mingxing, TMA's secretary-general, said in the autonomous region's capital.

Of the teams registered for the spring climbing season, more than 10 aim at climbing the world's highest peak, the 8,848-meter Mount Qomolangma, as this year marks the 50th anniversary of scaling the peak.

Tibet is known for the numerous high peaks in its region, featuring Mt. Qomolangma and four other 8,000-meter peaks and some70 7,000-meter peaks in the region or at the Sino-Nepalese border area.

Since 1980s Tibet has opened 46 mountains and peaks to expeditions from abroad, which has attracted some 10,000 people from 40 countries and regions for mountaineering and touring activities, Zhang said.

(People's Daily April 10, 2003)