Delhi shivers for 7th successive day; dense fog disrupts flights and trains

 As the national capital continued to experience severe cold-day conditions for the seventh consecutive day on Wednesday, foggy conditions were again held responsible for throwing flight and train schedules into disarray.

Though the weather office held out a word of comfort as satellite imagery showed fog had thinned over some parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains in north India, dense fog continued to envelop parts of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

According to the flight information display system of IGI airport in the Capital, 53 flights were cancelled and around 120 delayed on Wednesday. Affected flights included both domestic and international. A spokesperson for the Indian Railways said 20 trains arriving in Delhi were delayed by up to five hours due to foggy conditions.

The national capital woke up to yet another freezing day as the minimum temperature dropped to 3.5 degrees Celsius. Early morning at 5.30, visibility levels stood at 25 metres in Patiala, Ambala and Bareilly, 50 metres in Hisar, Churu and Bahraich and 200 metres in Lucknow. At the Palam Observatory near IGI airport in Delhi, visibility was limited to only 200 metres.

Early-morning foggy weather in large parts of north India has badly affected road, rail and air traffic over the last fortnight as people faced hardships at airports and railway stations owing to long delays and upset schedules.

In view of the low visibility levels, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) advised people to avoid unnecessary travel and take precautions while driving. The IMD said dense to very dense fog conditions are likely to prevail over north India for the next five days.

It said cold-day to severe-cold-day conditions would persist over the northern plains for two more days.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) of the city continued to remain in the “very poor” category with a reading of 373 in the morning which deteriorated to nearly 421 in the evening.