NEW DELHI, Jan 10 (NNN-PTI) – The Indian capital city of New Delhi and its surrounding areas, witnessed dense fog, reducing visibility to almost zero, and also a considerable rise in air pollution levels in the early hours today.
New Delhi has been facing intense cold conditions over the past few days, even as the Mercury plummeted to between four and five degrees Celsius over the past 12 hours.
Considering the prevailing weather conditions, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an Orange Alert for the city.
The IMD also warned that, the dense fog conditions would impact road, rail and air traffic. Cars and other vehicular traffic were seen moving on roads at a very slow pace with fog lamps on.
In an advisory, the Delhi airport stated, “Due to dense fog, there has been an impact on flight departures. However, flights which are CAT III compliant (capable of low visibility operation), are able to land and depart from Delhi airport.”
Similarly, trains, to or from Delhi, were running behind their schedules, as dense fog reduced the visibility to almost zero.
Meanwhile, many areas in Delhi recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of over 400, which fell in the “severe” category. Vivek Vihar area recorded an AQI of 469, Wazirpur an AQI of 472, while Alipur, Ashok Vihar and Bawana areas recorded an AQI of 403, according to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research.– NNN-PTI
