Severe cold weather coupled with dense fog in large parts of Delhi and NCR on Thursday morning affected normal life and disrupted road, rail and air traffic. Three people were fatally injured in two separate road accidents in Greater Noida.
The mishap took place around 9 am on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway when the driver of a speeding Nissan car hit the road divider and toppled. 15 minutes later, a mini truck rammed into a trailer at the crossroad of Surajpur. Both the accidents caused traffic snarls, in the respective locations, for several hours.
These two incidents were a stark reminder to the horrifying car pile-up on the Yamuna Expressway, which killed five people and injured 30 others. On 24th December, around 30 cars rammed into each other within minutes due to dense fog and low visibility.
Delhites heaved a sigh of relief on Friday morning as most places observed shallow fog only. Other places in North and East India still remain enveloped under very thick cover of fog. General visibility dropped down to nil in Gorakhpur, Jammu and Jamnagar. Lucknow and Amritsar also observed very dense fog with the visibility dropping to 50 meters.
Persistent dense fog pulled down the day temperature to the season’s low of 13.1°C on Wednesday at the Safdarjung Observatory. Palam followed suit on Thursday by recording 11.7°C as maximum temperature. Night also remained cold with minimums less than 7°C in most parts of the national capital.
Death of two homeless persons each on Wednesday and Thursday due to severe cold weather prompted the Delhi Urban shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) to increase the number of family night shelters to 30 and one especially for lactating mothers.
