New Delhi: As many as 16 deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh due to cold wave conditions with the winter weather becoming more pronounced in several parts of northern India.
Delhi thus woke up to a slight nip in the air as the minimum temperature settled at 8.8 degrees Celsius, which is normal for this time of the year. The maximum in the national capital, however, hovered five places above the normal at 28.9 degrees.
In Uttar Pradesh, dense fog and the falling temperatures hit normal life as it led to delays in flight and train operations.
According to reports reaching Lucknow, in the last 24 hours in UP, five people were killed in separate accidents caused due to reduced visibility in the fog at Barabanki followed by three such casualties in Fatehpur.
Besides, the chill is said to have claimed three lives in Basti, two each in Kushinagar and Siddhartnagar and one in Chandauli.
Officials at Chaudhry Charan Singh Airport in Lucknow said services were running behind schedule with at least three flights – of Air India, Jet Airways and Indigo Airlines — facing delays of over 90 minutes.
Also, many trains are running three to 10 hours behind schedule, railway officials said.
The weather office said that dense fog occurred at many places in eastern UP and at isolated places in western UP.
Night temperatures, however, rose appreciably in Faizabad division on Monday but fell in the Meerut division. The lowest temperature recorded in the state was 3.1 degrees at Muzaffarnagar.
Cold weather conditions appeared to have set in across Punjab and Haryana with Amritsar recording the lowest minimum for the two neighbouring states at 5 degrees, which was one notch below normal. The minimum in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, their common capital, settled at 7 degrees.
Ludhiana’s minimum settled at 5.7 degrees, also one degree below normal, while Patiala had a cold night at 7.6 degrees. In Haryana, Narnaul was the coldest place with a minimum of 5.2 degrees.
IN the desert state of Rajasthan, it was the hill station of Mount Abu which recorded the lowest minimum of 5.5 degrees while Churu saw the night temperature settle at 6.6 degrees.
The state capital of Jaipur and SriGanganagar recorded an identical low of 9 degrees. Temperatures are likely to further dip in the state in the coming 24 hours, the weatherman said.