The world's highest peak, Mount Everest, has moved 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) southwest after the devastating Nepal earthquake on April 25, a Chinese government agency said.
"The magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Nepal on April 25 moved Qomolangma, known as Mount Everest in the West, 3 centimeters to the southwest," China's National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation said in a report published on Monday, according to China Daily.
"The second quake in Nepal, on May 12, didn't move the mountain either horizontally or vertically," the report said.
The devastating earthquake, however, did not affect height of the world's tallest peak (8,848 meters), reported official news agency Xinhua. The report pointed out that the earthquake has reversed the gradual northeast shift of the mountain.
The Chinese agency said that Everest moved 40 centimeters to the northeast at a speed of 4 cm a year and rose three centimetres at a speed of 0.3 cm a year.
"The mountain has been constantly moving to the northeast, and the earthquake made it bounce a little bit in the opposite direction. The scale of such movement is normal and won't affect life in the area," Xu Xiwei of Institute of Geology at the China Earthquake Administration in Beijing told China Daily.
The state-run agency placed a satellite monitoring system on the mountain in 2005 to study its movement, according to Xinhua. Chinese geologists believe geographical changes in the Himalayan mountain ranges - Everest in part of Upper Himalaya - have a great influence on the climate, environment and ecology of East and South Asia.
The Nepalese government is still observing the impact of the earthquake on Everest.
"We have been studying the core areas affected by the quake and there has been a general southward movement," said Madhu Sudan Adhikari, an official in Nepal's Land Ministry, according to AFP.
The April 25 earthquake devastated the South Asian country, killing nearly 9,000 people.
