Prague, Dec 12 (CTK) – The South African Tugela Falls is the tallest waterfall in the world with 983 metres which is four metres more than the Angel Falls in Venezuela, officially still number one, Martin Sil, head of the Czech surveyors’ team which measured the former in November, confirmed to CTK on Monday.
Sil said details would be revealed at a press conference later this week.
With its previously measured height of 948 metres, the Tugela Falls is called the second tallest waterfall in the world.
“Now we will turn to the World Waterfall Database and provide our data to it. We will try to have the order changed,” Sil said.
Until now, the heights were determined by a simple deduction of elevations above the sea level found by a barometric altimeter.
The Czechs measured the waterfall height by a surveying method.
The height of the Angel Falls, situated in the Canaima National Park, exactly corresponds with the difference between its edge and the water level of the Churun River.
Sil said the Angel Falls might be only more than 800 metres high because it drops 807 metres in a section, then continuing through cascades to the last fall 30 metres lower.
On the other hand, the Tugela Falls, situated in the Drakensberg, drops with five falls, continues with steep cascades and after about a kilometre, the last, roughly ten-metre fall appears.
Disputes over the correct height of record geographical sites often appear. Mount Everest, straddling the border between China and Nepal, officially measures 8,848 metres in Nepal which uses the data found by Indian experts in 1954.
However, China measured 8,844.43 metres in May 2005.
According to maps, the tallest Czech mountain Snezka is situated 1,602 metres above the sea level, but surveyor Vladimir Hlavsa found in February 2014 that the real summit is at the altitude of 1,603.3 metres, but in Poland.
