Fog envelops north India
CHAOTIC TUESDAY Flights cancelled, trains and buses running late, advisories to close schools... pollution wreaks havoc
A thick blanket of smog gripped the plains of northern India including the National Capital Territory on Tuesday morning, bringing public transport to a halt and leading to cancellation of some international flights.
A thick cover of smog — fog plus air pollution — reducing visibility to a few metres, covered Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and parts of western Uttar Pradesh since early morning.
“The smog was result of high moisture in air and no wind leading to poor dispersal of pollutants,” said A Sudhakar, member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, whose data showed spike in air pollution level across north India.
Poor pollutant dispersal coupled with moisture in air causes smog.
In Hisar, the state transport buses were stopped from running till the visibility improved and many returned to the depots. “It takes five hours to reach Sirsa from Delhi. But on Monday night, it took more than nine hours,” said Ramesh Kumar, a driver of state run Haryana roadways bus.
In Fatehabad, district collector Hardeep Singh postponed opening of all schools by one hour to 9 a.m. and also issued directions to keep a watch on stubble burning. The Haryana agriculture university had reported over 800 incidents of stubble burning from Fatehabad — a cause for rise in air pollution — in the last few days.
In Rohtak, where four people were injured in a road accident due to a pile-up on the national highway, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences issued an advisory to keep children indoors during high pollution hours, especially in the morning hours.
In Punjab, where most places reported very low visibility, six flights didn’t reach the Amritsar airport, leaving the passengers fuming.
According to the officials out of six, three flights including Jet Airways, Vistara and Indigo which were scheduled for Amritsar on Monday evening were cancelled and didn’t fly
AMRITSAR/HISAR/AGRA:
from Delhi International airport due to dense smog causing poor visibility.
Three flights of Air India, Spice Jet and Jet Airways were not allowed to land at the Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport in Amritsar. “These three flights were diverted and later cancelled as they couldn’t be allowed landing due to poor visibility,” said airport director Manoj Sinsoria.
As many as 12 trains were running several hours late in the morning, and the numbers are only expected to worsen.
Heavy smog was also reported from Agra, Aligarh and Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh leading to cancellation of some bus services. Experts said proximity to sandy state of Rajasthan is also a cause of rise in smog as stubble burning in the region is bare minimum.
“As a possible consequence of climate change, the weather is a complete standstill since October. Due to negligible wind speed, this type of smog build-up is here to stay for more days,” said Prof Rajesh Dhankar, head of department of Environmental Sciences at Maharshi Dayanand University.