Fog throws Delhi out of gear

A dense fog added to the Delhiites' Monday morning blues as the national capital was fogged up for the third consecutive day, affecting road and rail services. Flight schedules, however, were untouched. Early morning visibility dropped to below 100 metres, leading to traffic slowdown on most roads, with vehicles forced to move at 15 km an hour during the peak traffic hour - 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. "Road traffic is affected for the third day and there were some minor accidents in east Delhi," said a police official. Commuters complained of being inconvenienced. "Monday mornings are always rushed and fog compounded the problem. The road visibility was less than 70 meters in Mayur Vihar, Noida Mode and Pragati Maidan," Rajesh Srivastava, who travels to Paharganj from Noida, said. Savita Sengupta, another commuter, said she lost her way near Shanti Path in the heart of the city.

"The visibility was really poor just before 8 a.m. and I just could not see the vehicles in front of me. Instead of turning into Shanti Path, I took some other road and was delayed by 20 minutes on my way to office," she said. Over a dozen long-distance trains, most of them New Delhi-bound, were also delayed by several hours. Trains like the Mumbai Rajdhani Express, the Patna Sampark Kranti Express, the Farakka Express, the Shiv Ganga Express and the Purva Express were delayed by two to five hours. Flight schedules were "almost normal". "The runway visibility was over 1,000 metres this morning. Barring a couple of flights, almost all were on time," said an airport official. However, runway visibility dropped to 500 meters at 8 a.m., leading to minor delays in the case of some domestic flights.

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