Chandigarh, Dec 17: Dense fog engulfed most parts of north India throwing normal life out of gear and affecting rail and air services, even as people got little respite from the cold conditions that have gripped the region for the past week. Chandigarh city was covered with a dense fog early this morning with near zero visibility. Vehicular traffic was partly affected as motorists were forced to drive at a snail's pace with headlights and fog lights switched on.
The Meteorological Department sources said that dense fog also engulfed Amritsar, Halwara, Ambala and Sirsawa.
The Mumbai-Delhi-Chandigarh Indian Airlines flight was delayed by nearly 40 minutes while the jet airways flight scheduled to arrive here at 1340 hrs from was delayed by nearly the same time due to "bad weather conditions", the airline sources said.
Several trains coming from Delhi side to destinations in Haryana and Punjab were also delayed ranging from 30 minutes to several hours.
Cold conditions showed little signs of abating after the state received rain and snow for the past four consecutive days.
At Bhuntar in Himachal Pradesh, mercury plunged to two degrees Celsius below the freezing point while in Shimla the low settled at 2.9 C. Sundernagar was also cold at 3.1 C.
Srinagar in Kashmir valley received light rain and the low was recorded at 0.8 C while at Jammu it was 9.4 C.
Chandigarh (9 C), Ambala (10.5 C), Hisar (10 C), Karnal (1 C), Rohtak (12.3 C), Amritsar (5.4 C), Ludhiana (9.9 C) and Patiala (11.6 C) also experienced some cold nights. Bureau Report