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North India shivers; toll 177

Road, rail, air traffic disrupted: Cold wave to persist for next few days

New Delhi: North India reeled under a cold wave which has taken 177 lives in the country.

Fog continued to disrupt road, rail and air services for the third day on Thursday while Dal Lake of Kashmir froze with temperatures in the Valley plunging to minus four degrees Celsius.

The Met office said the chilly winds are a direct off-shoot of western disturbances and snowfall in several parts of North India, and were expected to persist for next few days.

"Continuing snowfall in parts of North India raises the possibility that chilly winds may persist for a few more days," the Met office said.

For the next 24 hours, the weatherman has predicted a clear sky but the minimum temperature could further fall to four degrees. The total cold wave death toll in U.P. is 84 so far.

One casualty each was reported from Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Hardoi, Jaunpur and Mathura, police said.

According to the Met department, the temperature continued with its downward trend in Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad and Meerut divisions.

The north-westerly winds and snowfall in the Himalayan range pushed down the minimum temperature to 5 degrees in Kanpur.

Agra remained the coldest place in U.P. recording a minimum temperature of 3 degrees Celsius, which was 4 degrees below normal.

A Home Guard jawan, identified as Ram Pal, died due to intensified cold wave in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. His body was found outside his house at Dunni village in the district. The temperature stayed two degrees to four degrees below normal at many places in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. A thick fog enveloped the plains, reducing the visibility considerably, forcing vehicular traffic to move at snail's pace with headlights on. The Indian Airlines and the Jet Airways flights to Chandigarh were cancelled for the third day on Thursday due to bad weather in the union territory. The fog affected the movement of several trains on the Delhi-Jammu and the Delhi- Amritsar routes.

The visibility was nil at Chandigarh, Palam (Delhi), Udhampur, Jammu, Pathankot, Adampur, Halwara and Hindon and upto 100 metres at Sarsawa, 600 metres at Sirsa and 800 metres at Bhatinda.

The cold wave again gripped the entire Kashmir Valley. Srinagar recorded further fall in the temperature to minus 4.0 degrees, two degrees below normal. The 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu remained open for one-way traffic while roads to far flung and remote areas remained closed for the fourth day on Thursday.

Night temperatures were appreciably below normal in north Gujarat Region, Telangana, in some parts of east Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, in remaining parts of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. They were above normal in some parts of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. -- UNI

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