Fog returns to disrupt air, rail traffic
As Delhiites continue to shiver with the mercury plummeting further, commuters were a harried lot with air and rail traffic affected severely as fog enveloped the capital Wednesday morning.
While the minimum temperature fell to 5.6 degrees Celsius, a significant drop from 9.3 degrees on Tuesday, the maximum temperature slumped to 15.5 degrees Celsius, a notch higher than the previous day.
A total of eight flights were cancelled and around 40 trains and 118 planes were delayed in the capital due to fog. By the time the visibility condition started improving at the airport by the afternoon, Four other flights had to be diverted to other destinations.
“The fog started to descend at the Indira Gandhi International airport in the wee hours due to which the runway visibility dipped below 100 metre. The low visibility procedure was implemented on both the runways early morning which was lifted by around 11 am,” a spokesperson of Delhi International Airport Limited said.
A total of 172 flights operated under the three categories of special instrument landing system. “As the runway visibility was less than the required minima for take off, flights started taking off only after 9:30 am. However, flights arriving at the airport landed using CAT-IIIB instrument landing system,” an airport official said.
Foggy condition in the capital and other parts of northern and eastern India affected rail traffic severely. Several long-distance trains including Rajdhanis to Patna, Howrah, Mumbai and Bhubaneswar were running behind schedule on Wednesday.
Some of the major trains including Rajendra Nagar Jansadharan Express, Mahabodhi Express, New Delhi Jalpaiguri Express, Sampoorna Kranti Express etc were running four to six hours behind schedule.
