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China Youth Daily yesterday published a story questioning the necessity of carrying the Olympic torch to the world's highest peak, saying the action is largely symbolic.

 

One of the key themes of the "People's Olympics" is security, the article emphasized.

While acknowledging that taking the Olympic flame to the globe's highest point had a powerful symbolic charge, the article pointed out that climbing Mount Qomolangma is very dangerous.

 

It said that 2,249 mountaineers had scaled the world's highest peak by 2004, but 186 had lost their lives. During the first half of 2006, 100 people tried to climb the mountain and 11 of them died.

 

It will be extremely difficult to carry the Olympic torch over the peak and shoot the entire proceedings for live broadcast, the article said. 

 

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games on Tuesday (BOCOG) announced earlier that a rehearsal for next year's Olympic torch relay over Mount Qomolangma would take place at a safe period this year and that weather conditions would be taken into account.

 

The torch is expected to reach the summit of Qomolangma from the southern slope and will then be carried down the northern slope, and the process will be televised, according to BOCOG.

 

The article queried the potential impact on the mountain environment.

 

About 50 tons of plastic, glass and metal garbage were dumped on Qomolangma between the 1950s and 1990s. Mountaineers have cleared out seven tons of trash and more than 400 oxygen tanks from the mountain since 2000, it said.

 

A geologist team funded by the United Nations Environment Program found clear signs of terrain change and glacier retreat on Qomolangma at the beginning of the year, it said.

 

Some experts have blamed the environmental changes partly on the increase of tourists and mountaineers to the area.

 

Taking modern equipment up the mountain for the televised torch burning broadcast is likely to result in greater pollution, the article argued.

 

Earlier reports said that the torch is specifically designed to burn at a high altitude.

Beijing promised in its Olympic bid that the Olympic flame would crest the world's highest peak.
 

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2007)