Live TV From Peak of Everest Dramatizes Joint Ascents

Mountain climbing’s heady mix of beauty, glory and potential disaster was captured Thursday in an extraordinary live television broadcast from Mt. Everest as multinational teams scaled the peak from opposite sides and met at the top.

“Mankind has crossed the highest mountain in a new triumph of the human spirit,” an excited Beijing television announcer said in describing the achievement of the joint Chinese-Japanese-Nepalese expedition.

Viewers saw breathtaking panoramic photos of the snow-covered Himalayas as new Japanese technology permitted television signals to be relayed instantaneously by satellite from small cameras carried by the climbers.

The expedition set a number of firsts: Besides being the first live television broadcast from the world’s highest point, it was the first expedition to have teams meet from opposite sides or to have climbers ascend one face and descend the other.

Japanese associated with the effort said the technology incorporated in the video camera attached to climber Susumu Nakamura’s helmet was so advanced that if the camera were to be given away in China--or abandoned on the Chinese side of the mountain, as is sometimes done--it could violate Western rules governing the transfer of high technology to Communist nations.

The Chinese television network began six hours of live coverage shortly before noon, relaying images from a team climbing the north face of the 29,028-foot mountain, as well as scenes of the climbers seen through telephoto lenses on cameras at camps in Tibet on the north side and Nepal on the south.

The climb, in which 12 men reached the top, unfolded under a brilliant sun. But at times, misty clouds or blowing powdered snow on the face of Everest reminded viewers of the harshness of the climbers’ challenge.

90 Minutes at Summit

Cering Doje, an ethnic Tibetan who was a member of China’s contingent, was the first person to reach the peak, arriving at 12:44 p.m. He stayed there for about 90 minutes, which the official New China News Agency said was the longest anyone has ever spent on top of Mt. Everest.

Much later in the day, a climber with a television camera reached the top. At 4:25 p.m. three climbers from the south side met three climbers from the north, including the camera-bearing Nakamura, at the peak. For half an hour they transmitted views of their activities and the surrounding panorama of white peaks and valleys.

The climbers, some with oxygen masks, others gasping in the thin air, embraced and displayed small Japanese carp flags, a traditional symbol of hope for boys to grow up strong.

A Japanese climber dug a bottle of whiskey from his backpack and emptied it on top of the peak in a tribute to those who have died trying to climb the mountain.

At 5 p.m. the last of the climbers started down, with three from the north descending to the south and three from the south heading north.

Japan’s Nihon Television Corp. paid most of the $12.5-million cost of the expedition, which involved more than 200 people. The first stages, which included establishing a series of camps, began in early April. During this period, a member of the Japanese team died of heart failure.

Mt. Everest was first climbed on May 29, 1953, by a New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, and his Sherpa partner Tenzing Norgay. Since then about 200 people have scaled the peak.