Men ride their elephants in heavy fog in New Delhi

Severe cold and fog yesterday continued to hurt people in north and central India, claiming six more lives in Uttar Pradesh.

With the latest deaths, the toll in Uttar Pradesh has hit 69. Officials yesterday reported three fatalities from Shahjahanpur, two from Bareilly and one from Basti.

Most of those who lost their lives were pavement dwellers with no shelter from the harsh winter, an official said.

The freezing cold has forced authorities to close schools in many places, including in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Chandigarh and Orissa.

The Chandigarh airport remained shut for the fourth straight day yesterday in the wake of thick fog while Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport worked on low visibility procedures despite the weather and most flights operated on time.

For the second day yesterday, water taps had not frozen in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, sparing residents the ordeal of lighting small fires around the pipes to defreeze them.

The weather in Srinagar was comparatively warmer even while remaining below freezing poing (minus 0.4), according to the Met office.

Uphill towns like Leh and Kargil are still well below zero at minus 13.6 and minus 10.4 degrees, respectively.

Himachal Pradesh saw fresh snow fall in Lahul and Keylong. The schools in Una district have been closed till Tuesday.

Tour operators in Shimla are making the best of the snow, luring winter tourists with attractive skiing plans.

Down in the plains, Delhi and its neighbouring cities experienced a foggy day.

Many trains were delayed in the national capital.

The weather office has predicted a colder and foggy Sunday for the city with the temperature ranging between 5-12 degrees.

Schools in Delhi have been closed till January 13.

In Chandigarh, scores of passengers were stranded at the airport as fog hit flights in and out of the city. However, trains ran on time.

All major cities in Punjab and Haryana remained below 5 degrees minimum temperature with Haryana’s Narnaul town coldest at 1.5 degrees.

Jaipur in Rajastan, on the contrary, had a welcome warm day with the sun up and shining. However, cities like Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Mount Abu saw another very cold day yesterday.

Orissa has been passing through extreme weather conditions for over a week and yesterday authorities suspended morning classes in all schools.

Phulbani, the district headquarters of Kandhamal, was the coldest in the state at 3 degrees.

Despite heavy fog cover over Delhi, the Indira Gandhi International Airport here did not see flight cancellations or delays, an official said yesterday, adding that only one cargo flight was diverted.

“Low Visibility Procedure (LVP) was implemented at IGIA on Jan 7 at 2320 hrs and terminated today (Saturday) at 1148 hrs, duration of 12 hours 28 minutes,” a Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) official said.

Barring one cargo flight which was diverted due to low visibility levels, all other flights more or less operated on time, he said.

According to the official, 279 flights operated under various categories of instrument landing system (ILS) in the duration of LVP.

“The visibility levels hovered around 175 metres and various categories of ILS systems were pressed into service like CAT-I-II and III A ILS systems,” the official added.