Beijing Olympic torch nears Everest peak -Xinhua

EVEREST BASE CAMP, China, May 8 (Reuters) - A team of climbers taking the Beijing Olympic flame up Mount Everest is now just 48 metres short of the 8,848 metre (29,030 foot) peak, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

State television showed live footage of a team of mainly ethnic Tibetan climbers scaling Everest, known in Chinese as Mount Qomolangma.

Climbers were expected to reach the top by about 0100 GMT, state television reported.

Heavy snowfalls over the weekend had delayed China's crowning moment, destroying routes fixed earlier by climbers and forcing repairs to mountain-side camps.

But as a second day of relative calm enveloped Everest on Tuesday, organisers lifted a veil of silence shrouding the climb, buoying hopes of a renewed push to the summit.

The mountaineering team's spokesman said that 31 Chinese climbers, 22 of them ethnic Tibetan, were fixing routes and repairing camps for the final assault.

The Everest flame is separate from the main Olympic torch that arrived in mainland China on Sunday after a protest-marred international relay that embarrassed officials and sparked a wave of nationalistic fervour at home.

The anti-Chinese demonstrations that disrupted the international stretch of the longest torch relay in Olympic history were triggered by Tibetan riots and China's immediate crackdown. (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, David Gray, and Mark Chisolm, Writing by Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Ken Wills and Valerie Lee) (Take a look at the Countdown to Beijing blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)