The Hindu : Delhi shivers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

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National

Delhi shivers

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JAN. 6. It was a very cold beginning to the week for the Capital on Monday with the mercury dipping by 1.1 degrees Celsius to record 5 degrees Celsius — the lowest this season.

The weatherman's forecast does not hold out too much sunshine for the rest of the week either. According to the Met Office, cold wave conditions are likely to continue for a few more days. Fog too is likely to continue up to forenoon on Tuesday. The minimum temperature is likely to hover around 5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

Thick fog yet again disrupted flight operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport here for over four hours on Monday, resulting in diversion of three international aircraft in the wee hours of the morning and subsequent delays in domestic operations.

According to airport officials, fog set in at about 1 a.m. and within an hour the runway visual range was down to 75 metres. The situation remained much the same till about 6-30 a.m., after which visibility improved a little above 200 metres.

This, however, did not help flight operations as all domestic airlines require a runway visual range of over 350 metres. As a result, delays were inevitable and many domestic passengers had to bear with rescheduling and combining of aircraft.

By 8 a.m., the visibility had improved considerably with the runway visual range crossing the 500-metre mark. In the next couple of hours, officials said, flight operations were back to normal.

Three aircraft — two Air-India flights, AI-720 and AI-411, as well as a SU-535 — were diverted between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. to Mumbai due to poor visibility.

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