Thick fog covered the entire Delhi disrupting operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport this morning. At least 50 flights are being delayed, while 15 others are cancelled. Traffic on Delhi roads slowed to a crawl due to poor visibility and people shivered as the minimum temperature dropped to 5.6 degrees Celsius, a sharp fall from yesterday's 9.3 degrees.

Rail services were also hit and at least 30 trains have been reportedly delayed because of the fog. The Met department forecast more foggy days ahead. "Thick fog will be seen in the coming two days. The skies will be slightly clear towards the afternoon," a Met department official said. Today's maximum temperature is expected to be about 14 degrees Celsius. Fog began to descend at the airport in the wee hours due to which the runway visibility dipped below 100 metres and the general visibility to less than 50 metres, an airport official said.

Flights were unable to take off as the runway visibility was less than the required minimum which ranges between 125 metres to 150 metres, the official said. However, flights arriving at the airport were able to land using the CAT-IIIB instrument landing system. Two Jet Air flights arriving here between 4 AM and 5 AM were diverted due to operational reasons. According to sources, the pilots were not trained to operate CAT-IIIB landing system. Due to poor visibility at the new runway, it was not operational and only the main runway was functional, the official said. This is the first spell of dense fog this year. The cold wave, meanwhile, continued to sweep other parts of north India, including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.

Video Source: ibnlive