Thick fog continued to suspend operations at the Delhi airport Monday morning, delaying five domestic and seven international flights and cancelling one, according to news agency ANI.
Nearly 56 trains were also delayed and 15 others cancelled as the visibility dropped to zero metres.
The temperature Monday morning was 5.7°C. “The minimum temperature dropped to 5.7 degrees Celsius on Monday. This is the coldest day of the season so far. Earlier, it had dropped to 6.3 degrees on December 24. It is likely to drop further to around 5 degrees Celsius over the next few days,” said an official at IMD, New Delhi.
The pollution level fell marginally since Sunday night to ‘severe’ zone and is expected to drop further from Wednesday, according to the weather department. The Air Quality Index was 390 around 8.30 am — few notches lower than Sunday’s average of 398.
“While the moisture in the air helped to trap the pollutants in the air, the calm wind were not able to flush out the pollutants. As a result pollution levels have shot up,” said an official at the Central Pollution Control Board.
On Sunday too — the last day of 2017 — similar foggy conditions had affected the schedules of around 350 flights. More than 50 trains were delayed and 16 had to be cancelled.