Fog delays flights at Delhi airport

NEW DELHI: As dense fog continued to hamper train movement, Northern Railway on Saturday cancelled six trains from Delhi and announced the cancellation of another 13 trains from Sunday till January 31. The trains which will remain cancelled on Saturday are New Delhi-Agra express, Mahabodhi express, Kaifiyat express, Delhi-Sultanpur express, Delhi-Darbhanga express and Mahananda express. The trains which will remain cancelled from Sunday to January 31 include Rewa express, Farraka express, Katihar-Amritsar express, Bareilly-Allahabad express and Jhansi-Lucknow express. The cancellation comes as more than 70 trains are consistently running late since the past one week due to the dense fog in several parts of north India. A Northern Railway spokesperson said several more trains have been short terminated in view of the foggy weather conditions. The Lucknow Shatabdi express, which was scheduled to arrive on Friday at 10 pm, is reportedly running late by over 12 hours. The late running trains also include the Rajdhanis from Mumbai, Howrah, Sealdah and Rejendra Nagar(Patna). The national capital remained in the grip of increasing cold wave on Saturday with the minimum temparature settling at 5.4 degree Celsius against Friday's four degree Celsius. A thick cover of fog also engulfed the capital on Saturday morning adding to morning commuters woes as normal visibility range reduced to 200 metres. Saturday's minimum was 1.5 degree below the normal low at this point of the season, Met officials said. On Friday, the maximum temperature was 20.2 degrees Celsius which was also two notches below normal. Last year the same day, the minimum temperature was recorded at 2 degree Celsius while the maximum was 20 degree Celsius. Cold wave conditions are likely to continue in the next few days due to snowfall in the northern states. The weatherman said the maximum will hover around 20 degrees while the minimum temperature will increase to 8 degree Celsius on Sunday.

CHANDIGARH: Around 200 air passengers were at the receiving end on Friday as MDLR Airlines cancelled its both flights and Kingfisher Airways cancelled its Kolkata flight due to dense fog, resulting in zero visibility, at the airport here. Except for Air India's Chandigarh-Delhi-Mumbai flight, the three flights operated by Jet Airlines and Kingfisher Airlines had delayed departures varying between two to four hours. Similarly, foggy weather enroute took toll on passengers travelling on long distance trains like Unchahaar Express, Kalka-Howrah Express, Barmer-Chandigarh Express and Sadbhawna Express which were running late varying between five and 12 hours. ''Chandigarh-Kolkata flight did not take off for the past two days. Kullu flight failed to take off due foggy weather here as well as at Kullu. Hence the cancellation,'' an MDLR executive said. Speaking to TOI, a Kingfisher official confirmed cancellation of Chandigarh-Kolkata flight, scheduled to leave at 5.40 pm. ''It had to be cancelled due to fog, while we rescheduled the departure of Chandigarh-Mumbai flight,'' he said. Enquiries revealed that Kingfisher's Chandigarh-Mumbai flight left the city at 4.00 pm against the scheduled departure of 10.30 am. Jet Airlines' flights to Delhi and Mumbai were late by one and two hours respectively. Meanwhile, passengers on board Unchahaar Express and Kalka-Howrah Express were the worst hit as both the trains were running more than ten hours behind schedule. Other trains recording delayed arrivals of more than two hours were Barmer-Jodhpur-Chandigarh Express, Sadbhawna Express and Paschim Express. Enquiries revealed that Unchahaar Express reached Chandigarh railway station after 10.30 pm against the scheduled arrival of 9.55 am, recording a delay of over 12 hours, while Kalka-Howrah Express chugged in at around 2.00 pm against its scheduled arrival of 3.15 am, a delay of 10 hours. Railway officials said that Barmer-Chandigarh train was late by five hours while Sadbhawna Express was late by three hours. A delay of one and one-and-a-half hours were recorded in the arrival of morning Shatabdi and Himalayan Queen Express, they said.

Hand over perpetrators of Mumbai terror attack: PM tells Pakistan