Three dead in UP accidents as dense fog engulfs north India
DECEMBER BLUES Woman from Ukraine among the dead, condition likely to worsen as temperature may dip further, says Met dept
NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH/LUCKNOW/ SRINAGAR:Visibility dipped due to fog on Christmas Day in most parts of northern India caused cancellation of at least 17 trains and four accidents in Uttar Pradesh resulting in death of three people, including a Ukrainian woman.
“Two women from Ukraine, identified as Dana and Masha, were travelling from Kanpur to Delhi along with two youngsters...The vehicle (an SUV) met with an accident...(in) Mathura, leaving two dead,” Aditya Shukla, SP (rural) for Mathura, told Hindustan Times.
He identified the deceased as Dana and Vaibhav Sharma. “Another girl from Ukraine, Masha, and Ankit from Haryana were injured,” the official said.
In a separate incident, 10 school students were injured in an accident in Mainpuri on Monday after the school bus of ‘Baba International’ collided with a truck. Ghiror’s sub-divisional magistrate Ram Chandra said the school was open to celebrate the birthdays of some children.
A northern railway spokesperson, on Monday, said 26 trains were delayed and six other were rescheduled however, passengers on most trains reaching their destination in the morning hours faced delays. Several departures were rescheduled due to foggy conditions.
Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh have been covered in fog over the past few days. Weather department officials said conditions may intensity in the coming days.
The average temperature in the region hovered between 7°C and 22°C. The Met predicted that maximum temperature is likely to dip further and the minimum may rise by one or two notches. However, in some cities of Uttar Pradesh such as Muzaffarnagar, the minimum temperature was as low as 4°C.
On Monday, A UP state transport bus on its way to Mirzapur, collided head on with a truck near Pratapgarh district resulting in the death of the driver, Rasheed, 28. Around half a dozen passengers were injured, who were shifted to a nearby hospital by locals and police.
In Chandigarh, of 56 trains, 14 arrived late including the New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi train. The average delay was of up to three hours for most passengers.
Most cities in UP saw the skyline covered with dense fog with the temperature in Lucknow dipping to 7.7°C. The visibility was reduced to a few metres in several areas.
Met department director JP Gupta said there will be no significant change in weather conditions in the next 24 hours and warned of dense fog in some parts of the state, especially on the outskirts of Allahabad and neighbouring Pratapgarh district, where temperatures fell below 5°C.
Weather expert and former head of the department of geography, Allahabad University, BN Mishra said the cold wave has intensified with snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal and Uttarakhand.
“A strong western disturbance as expected this week will witness a further dip in temperature leading to fog conditions getting worse in the northern plains.”
Chandigarh Met department officials said that there was possibility of moderate to shallow fog in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh during evenings and mornings over the next three to four days.
COLDEST NIGHT OF THE SEASON IN SRINAGAR
Srinagar recorded the coldest night of this winter as the minimum temperature dipped to -4.2°C even as the rest of Kashmir Valley reeled under sub-zero temperatures.
Leh, in the Ladakh region, was the coldest recorded place in the state on Sunday as the minimum temperature settled at -8.0°C, followed by nearby Kargil town which recorded - 7.1°C, a Met department official said.
Earlier, the lowest this winter was -3.8°C recorded on December 5. A dense fog engulfed the city and some other parts of the valley early in the morning as the visibility dropped to less than 300 metres.