Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 31: While the chilling cold has swept the entire State, dense fog in the region delayed the train and air-traffic, leading to the suspension of Chandigarh-Jammu flight.
The traffic on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway plied only from Srinagar to Jammu today in view of heavy snow in Banihal-Jawahar Tunnel and Qazigund area for the past several days.
While Kashmir witnessed some improvement in the weather condition, in Jammu the temperature has further gone down since last night. Though several flights were delayed from Delhi and other destinations in view of fog, yet 15 flights operated today from the Jammu airport.
A spokesman from Meteorological Department said that the minimum temperature in Leh was recorded as -10.2 degree and maximum 2.4 degree Celsius while in Kargil it was -11 degree Celsius and maximum of -1.0 degree Celsius.
The maximum and minimum temperature in Jammu was 11.1 degree Celsius and 7.7 degree Celsius, respectively while in Srinagar maximum temperature was 9.1 degree Celsius and minimum -2.0 degree Celsius. The dense fog engulfed the entire plain areas of Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts during the morning and evening while during the day some improvement was witnessed in the weather condition for a few hours.
The spokesman predicted weather in next 24 hours in most of the districts in Kashmir as dry and fair while in Jammu areas, it will continue to remain as foggy with poor visibility.
SP Airport Jammu Ashok Sharma said there was little improvement in the weather conditions today during the day and most of the flights operated from Jammu airport. He said Chandigarh-Jammu-Chandigarh flight could not operate today while morning flights were delayed by 20 to 45 minutes. Some of the flights were rescheduled and Air Mantra flights remained suspended.
Meanwhile, a Railways spokesman said that several trains arrived 3 to 8 hours late in the winter capital city here in view of dense fog and huge rush of passengers has been accumulated at the Station. Pooja Express was late by eight and half hours, Himgiri by Seven hours, Sealdah by Six hours, Malwa Express more than three hours, Jhelum Express by more than four and half hours, Swaraj by three hours and so on. The departure of all the trains operating from Jammu was also rescheduled in the evening.
The vehicular traffic has also been badly hit due to dense fog in Jammu city during morning hours today. The dense fog again engulfed the entire city after around 5 am today. The visibility was also poor. The poor visibility also resulted into several accidents in which two youth lost their lives near Civil Secretariat last night.
Deputy Inspector General, Traffic Police, Shakeel Beig said that National Highway for one-way traffic was through while there will be up convoy tomorrow. He said vehicles will be allowed from Srinagar side to Jammu on Tuesday. Mr Beig said all the vehicles operating from Jammu tomorrow will have to cross Nagrota by 11 am and Udhampur TPC by 12.30 pm but for petrol/ diesel/ kerosene oil tankers and LPG vehicles/ tankers moving to Valley, the time limit has been relaxed up to 2 pm. He said the Doda-Kishtwar-Bhaderwah and Jammu Poonch roads were open to traffic.
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