Heavy fog in North India hits air, rail traffic

New Delhi: Dense fog over a major part of North India from late Fridaty night has hit road, train and air traffic.

In Delhi 15 flights have been delayed as runway visibility at the Delhi Airport dropped to less than 125 meters while two Jet Airways flights from Delhi to Mumbai stand cancelled.

Due to dense fog and runway visibility falling to nearly 100 metre the CAT III B instrument landing could not be used due to fault in the RVR instrument located on the main runway as well the new runway at the Dwarka side.

Around nine international flights have been diverted to Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

The flights to Delhi that have been diverted to other cities due to heavy fog include CA 947 China TO Delhi. EY 218 Eithad TO Delhi and QR 232 Qatar To Delhi.

All the morning flights have been delayed by over two-three hours causing inconvenience to passengers.

The flights delayed include 9W801 Delhi To Bangalore, 9W2251 Delhi To Chennai, NW2213 Delhi To Raipur, 9W2257 Delhi To Hyderabad, 9W2228 Indore To Bhopal and S26171 Delhi To Aurangabad.

The fog is also playing havoc with the Northern Power Grid causing delays in train traffic.

Northern Grid power lines are down because of heavy fog conditions in parts of Punjab and Haryana. Trains services have been affected to Delhi, Ambala and Palwal due to the glitch.

Although services of some trains have been restored, delays are still anticipated. While the power grid failure has largely affected the railways, some residential areas in Punjab, Haryana have also been affected.

In many other areas of North India a thick fog cover meant that visibility has dropped to less then 50 metres.

The fog has also led to a cold wave in the Northern plains.

The cold wave has so far killed 39 people in Uttar Pradesh alone.

Lucknow on Friday registered a low of six degrees Celsius. The minimum temperature in Srinagar slipped to -2 degrees Celsius while Shimla recorded a low of 4 degrees Celsius.

Mercury though was marginally up in Delhi at 9.4 degrees Celsius.

Amritsar recorded 4 degrees while Chandigarh was at 7 degree Celsius. The Met Department has warned that cold wave conditions will prevail over for the next 24 hours.