A Nepali teenager has claimed that she is the youngest woman ever to scale Mount Everest, achieving the feat at the tender age of 16.
Nima Chemji Sherpa, 16, reached the summit of Mount Everest at 12:13 pm on May 19 by being part of an expedition team named "High Adventure Expedition-2012". Nima was accompanied by her father.
However, the government is yet to officially confirm that Nima is indeed the youngest woman ever to achieve the feat.
According to reports, the jubilant girl is now recovering at the Everest Base Camp.
Nima, originally from Solukhombu district, has been living in Boudha of Kathmandu. A student who appeared in the SLC examination recently (junior high school), she climbed Mt Everest to utilize her "free time" after the exams, media reports quoted her as saying.
It is understood that altogether 16 Nepali women have successfully climbed Mt Everest so far, but they were all aged over 20.
Before attempting Mt Everest, Nima had already scaled Mount Lobuche at 6,119 m.
The news came three days after a 73-year-old Japanese woman named Tamae Watanabe reached the peak of the world's tallest mountain to break her own previous world record for being the oldest female to conquer Mount Everest.
However, the two world-records in climbing Mount Everest this week comes as three other climbers -- a Nepali-born Canadian, a German and a Korean -- died and two of their companions went missing while descending from the summit on Monday.
It must be noted that American mountain climber Jordan Romero currently holds the record for being the youngest person to climb Mount Everest. He was 13-years-old when he reached the peak. Before Romero, the record for youngest to climb Everest was held by another Nepali Temba Tsheri Sherpa who was 16 years old when he reached the summit in 2001
