The Hindu : National : It’s dense fog again

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Wednesday, Dec 31, 2008
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National

It’s dense fog again

Disrupts road, rail and air traffic

Trains running late by 2 to 6 hours
Flights delayed, cancelled

Chandigarh: Dense fog in the region continued to paralyse normal life as road, rail and air traffic remained disrupted on Tuesday, with cold wave conditions showing little signs of relenting.

Since last night till late this morning, Punjab and Haryana remained engulfed by thick fog, which reduced visibility to zero at most places, the Met sources said here.

The Jet Airways cancelled its afternoon flight from here to Mumbai while all the four outgoing flights of Kingfisher airline from Chandigarh were delayed. Since last night heavy fog prevailed in Chandigarh.

During the past four days, just one flight has taken off from Amritsar’s Raja Sansi airport, which has remained engulfed under thick fog.

Rail traffic across Punjab and Haryana was adversely hit due to fog as several trains were running late by 2 to 6 hours. Lucknow-Chandigarh was late by four hours, Dadar-Amritsar was late by nearly three hours, Amritsar-New Delhi inter-city was delayed by 40 minutes while New Delhi-Chandigarh-Kalka Shatabdi was delayed by 80 minutes and Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi’s delay was 60 minutes.

Early this morning, a thick cover of fog prevailed over Gurgaon, Ambala, Sonepat, Karnal, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Pathankot, Patiala and Bathinda.

Reports said that the vehicular traffic along the National and State highways was also thrown out of gear, due to zero visibility.

Meanwhile, there was no let up in cold conditions. Yesterday, the maximum temperature also dropped below normal by several degrees. Ambala was the coldest registering a maximum of 12.8 degrees Celsius, seven degrees below normal. The maximum at Patiala was 13.6 degrees C, five below normal.

Chandigarh and Karnal also experienced a cold day yesterday recording respective maximums of 17.8 C and 15 C. Meanwhile, Amritsar was the coldest place in the region as the minimum temperature there today settled at 3.3 C.

The night temperature recorded at Chandigarh today was (7.6 C), Ambala (6.8 C), Karnal (8.4 C), Narnaul (4.5 C), Rohtak (4.5 C), Bhiwani (5.6 C), Ludhiana (7.6 C) and Patiala (7.6 C). -- PTI

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