New Delhi, Jan 7 (IANS) Thick fog enveloped the national capital Thursday disrupting air and rail services once again and throwing normal life out of gear. As many as 34 trains and seven flights were cancelled because of fog while numerous others were rescheduled for the same.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) as around 25 domestic flights and over 10 international flights were delayed for three to four hours owing to runway visibility dropping below 50 meters.

In addition, seven flights were cancelled because of the poor visibility, an airport official said.

A minimum of 150 metres visibility is required for a flight to take off.

“The visibility was poor due to fog and CAT III landing system was activated to help landing and take off of flights, some of which were delayed, diverted or rescheduled,” an airport official said.

The rail services were also affected with as many as 34 trains standing cancelled.

“Thirty four trains were cancelled due to the fog in Delhi today. 36 have been rescheduled due to the inclement weather,” Northern Railway’s spokesperson Anant Swarup told IANS.

There was similar dislocation in air and rail services over the previous weekend due to fog and failure of the airport landing system.

Among the trains rescheduled Thursday are North East Express, Taj Express, Himalayan Queen, Bhopal Shatabdi, Lucknow Shatabdi, Puri Express, Shan-e-Punjab, Delhi Jogbani Express and New Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani.

“In addition to this, sixty one trains were running late because of the fog,” Swarup added.

According to an official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD), visibility recorded Thursday morning was 100 meters and the foggy condition prevailed till the afternoon.

The minimum temperature recorded was 6.2, one notch above average while the maximum was 18 degrees Celsius, three degrees below average, the official added.

The minimum temperature Wednesday was 5.6 degrees Celsius while the maximum stood at 19 degrees Celsius.

Vehicular movement on roads was also slow, causing inconvenience to Delhiites while commuting.

The fog returned Thursday after four days of clear skies and is expected to remain so Friday.