(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Several states in north India continued to reel under an intense cold wave yesterday.
Residents of Delhi woke up to the coldest Monday in the last five years, marked also by a dense fog, which reduced visibility to 50m. Fifty trains and 16 flights were delayed.
The minimum temperature was recorded at 4.2 degrees Celsius, four degrees below the season's average, the weather office said.
"Due to the poor visibility, the arrival of 50 trains from various parts of the country to the national capital has been delayed while 12 trains have been rescheduled and one has been cancelled," said an official of the Northern Railway.
The fog also hit flights - 16 departures were delayed by more than 15 minutes. But no flights were diverted or cancelled, an official at the capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport said.
Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung made an emotional appeal to Delhiites to help the city's homeless by giving them clothes, saying that displaying "yeoman kindness" was a rare opportunity in life.
According to the Delhi government, there are nearly 60,000 homeless in the capital city itself, but NGOs estimate them to be over 150,000.
The Delhi government has established 221 night shelters for homeless people with basic facilities such as clean drinking water, toilets, blankets and beds.
The cold wave also affect life across Bihar and people are unlikely to get any respite over the next 24 hours, weather officials said.
"Icy winds with foggy conditions have forced people to stay indoor," R K. Mohapatra, regional weather official, said in Patna .
He said fog and cold wave will aggravate in the coming days. "Cold wave will intensify in the last week of December."
Mohapatra said icy winds with cloudy sky will keep the cold wave condition more or less the same in the next four-five days.
Neighbouring Uttar Pradesh continued to shiver as the cold wave further intensified yesterday, leading to the closure of all schools in the capital Lucknow.
Icy winds blowing from the neighbouring hill state of Uttarakhand worsened the
situation which had already been compounded by a dense fog.
Footfalls at Agra's Taj Mahal have fallen considerably due to the cold wave, guides said.
The day temperatures in Agra fell to around 14 degrees Celsius, as the city was enveloped in a thick blanket of fog.
Himachal Pradesh experienced more snow.
The minimum temperature in Shimla was 6.2 degrees Celsius and 0 degrees in Manali.
Kalpa, some 250 km from Shimla, saw a minimum temperature of minus 0.6 degrees Celsius. It was 5.2 degrees Celsius in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
The desert state of Rajasthan also experienced severe cold.
Mount Abu, the only hill station in the state, was the coldest place, recording the minimum temperature of 2 degrees Celsius, 2 degrees below what is normal for this time of the season.
Churu and Bikaner recorded minimum temperatures of 4.2 and 4.5 degrees respectively.
State capital Jaipur recorded 6.4 degrees2 degrees below normal.
The southern states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh also continued to be in the grip of a cold wave.
Mercury plummeted to one degree Celsius in Lambasingi, a tribal area in Visakhapatnam district while the lowest temperature of 4 degree was recorded in Adilabad in Telangana state.
Lambasingi in Chintapalli mandal, about 110km from coastal city of Visakhapatnam, on Sunday chilled at zero degree.
The temperature in most parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana continue to be below 10 degrees.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has attributed the cold wave to cold dry northerly winds blowing into the two states. The IMD has forecast that temperature might further dip in the coming days.
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