New lights and road to prevent Everest traffic jam

The image above showing the Mount Everest traffic jam was posted on Instagram by mountaineer Nirmal Purja and soon became viral.

According to Nirmal, when he neared the summit last week there was a queue of roughly 320 people at Hillary Step as a result of Everest overcrowding.

The overcrowding means that climbers have to spend time waiting in up to 12 hours in the “death zone”.  This is believed to have contributed to half of the Everest deaths in this climbing season.

World leaders expressed their dismay at how governments of Nepal and China have focussed on traffic conditions in their cities but have neglected the Everest traffic jam after they issued a record breaking 521 permits this spring, costing $11,000 each.

Each country has now pledged to do more.  Nepal has issued a statement that it will introduce traffic lights on the bottlenecks to help traffic flow more smoothly, whereas China plans to build some new paths to the summit to ease congestion.

“Our work means that Everest traffic jams will become a thing of the past and these measures will mean we will have greater capacity to cope with the increasing number of tourists wishing to reach the summit.” stated a spokesman.

Plans are also under way to build a cafeteria and offer bungee jumps on the summit.

Reporter: John Spencer aka Not the Bible