Johann Peries has successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest, becoming only the second Sri Lankan in history to have reached the top of the world’s tallest mountain. Johann Peries successfully summited Mt. Everest at 5.55 am Nepal time on the morning of 22 May. Peries’ earlier attempt in 2016 was unsuccessful when his oxygen tank failed 400 meters before the summit.

Speaking after he made the difficult descent from Mt. Everest, Johann says that he was proud to unfurl the Sri Lankan flag at the world’s highest mountain peak, and dedicated his successful Everest Expedition to all Sri Lankans.

This was Johann’s second attempt at scaling the Everest peak. His first attempt was in April 2016 when he and Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala were the first Sri Lankans to attempt to summit the peak, but Johann was forced to turn back at 8,400m, a mere 448m short of reaching the summit, due to technical difficulties with his equipment. Kuru-Utumpala went on to complete the climb, becoming the first Sri Lankan to scale Mt. Everest.

Courtesy of dailymirror.lk