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Cold claims 4 lives in North; dense fog hits air, rail traffic

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New Delhi: At 4.2 degrees, Delhi records season’s lowest tempeature

Biting cold coupled with dense fog disrupted normal life in north India on Monday, claiming at least four lives, affecting road and rail traffic, and virtually paralysing flight operations in Delhi.

With 4.2 degrees, it turned out to be the coldest December 22 for Delhiites in five years and also the lowest of this season so far. As the temperatures dropped to four degrees below normal, the visibility went down to below 50 metres at times during the day, leading to the delay of about 50 trains and the rescheduling of another 12. Officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport informed that the weather led to the delay of 173 flights — 97 departures and 76 arrivals. In addition to that, five flights were cancelled due to bad weather at the Kullu, Chandigarh and Jammu airports. The dense morning fog is likely to last till December 29, warned the Met department.
As the cold wave spreads across the northern region, the maximum temperature remained at about 16 degrees. Humidity was recorded at 97% at 8:30 am.

The Met department has forecast similar weather on Tuesday, too. Even though the sky will remain mainly clear, there will be moderate to dense fog in the morning, the Met has said. The maximum and minimum temperaturs are likely to hover between 17 degrees and 5 degrees respectively.

Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat will reel under a cold blanket. MP and Gujarat’s Saurashtra and Kutch will most likely have maximum temperatures of less than 10 degrees.

Delhi and UP will most likely have a dense fog blanket for the whole week, and schools in Lucknow were shut down. One person is reported to have died of the cold in Lucknow. While in Delhi, three people died of asphyxiation for sleeping in a closed room with a burning angeethi inside.

4.2
Degrees Celsius, the lowest temperature of the season in Delhi. It was also the coldest December 22 in the past five years and

173
The number of flights delayed at Delhi airport

172
The number of trains running behind schedule

-9.2
Degrees, the night temperature recorded at Kargil

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