Dense fog engulfs north India; zero visibility in Bathinda and Amritsar; rail and road traffic hit

Vibha Sharma

New Delhi, December 20

People brave through a thick fog on Tuesday morning as dense to very dense fog engulfed North Inida, including Chandigarh, Punjab and Delhi, for the second morning on the trot, lowering visibility to 0 metres in Bhatinda and Amritsar, which affected rail and road traffic movement.

Air traffic was impacted due to heavy fog as visibility lowered to 50 metres in Chandigarh in the morning. No flight landed or took off from SBSI Airport due to poor visibility conditions.

Four flights coming from Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru and Mumbai have been diverted to Jaipur. Eight flights to various destinations have not departed, and are running four hours late. One flight from Delhi has been cancelled.

On Tuesday, 11 trains were reported running late by one to five hours as visibility dropped to 50 metres at the Palam and Safdarjung airports between 5:30 am and 7 am, an IMD official said.

Very dense fog is when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres, 51 and 200 is dense, 201 and 500 moderate, and 501 and 1,000 shallow.

Cities having low visibility amid dense fog today

According to the IMD, the cities which have low visibility amid dense fog on Tuesday are Bathinda (Punjab), Amritsar (Punjab), Ganganagar (Rajasthan), Patiala (Punjab), Lucknow(UP) and Purnea (Bihar). Ambala (Haryana), Agra (UP), Gorakhpur (UP), Bareilly (UP), Patna (Bihar), Gaya (Bihar) and Kolkata (WB) also have low visibility. Delhi’s Palam and Safdarjung were also included in the list by IMD.

The two cities in Punjab, Bhatinda and Amritsar, reported lowest visibility  “0 metres”, according to the IMD. Around 5: 30 am, Bhatinda continued to report nil visibility while Amritsar improved to 25 metres.

However, while minimum temperatures are recording below normal the maximum are settling higher. Maximum temperatures are appreciably above normal (3.1 °C to 5.1 °C) over many places in the region, including Himachal and J&K.

Two weeks into December, the absence of a strong western disturbance and hardly any snow in the upper and lower reaches of Himalayas so far are a cause of worry for wheat farmers as well as the common people. Snow and rains play a crucial part in replenishing water levels. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi recorded 100 per cent rainfall deficient this month.

Experts say that only two feeble western disturbances have affected the Western Himalayan Region this month.