At least 313 flights departing from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport were delayed on Friday morning amid dense fog and zero visibility, according to flight monitoring website Flightradar24.
Zero visibility conditions indicate visibility of less than 100 metres. Other than the airport, the areas of ITO, Rajokri and Barapullah flyover in the capital recorded zero visibility, The Indian Express reported.
The Delhi airport issued an advisory at 8.28 am warning passengers that operations may be disrupted, especially those of flights not equipped with an approach system that allows them to land during poor visibility conditions.
Five departing flights and one arriving flight were cancelled due to zero visibility on Friday.
On Thursday, 499 flights were delayed and 10 were cancelled.
On January 2 and January 3, visibility at the Delhi airport dropped to zero for nine consecutive hours, marking the longest stretch of zero visibility this winter, according to the weather department.
Dense fog in the national capital and other parts of North India also delayed 26 Delhi-bound trains as of 6 am on Friday morning, ANI reported.
Delhi remained gripped by a cold wave on Friday with the observatory at Safdarjung recording a minimum temperature at 6.0 degrees Celsius – 0.9 degrees Celsius lower than normal. The minimum temperature is forescasted to drop to 5 degrees Celsius in the coming days.
Air quality in Delhi has also worsened amid cold and foggy weather conditions. At 11.15 am on Friday, the air quality index, or AQI, in Delhi stood at 406, indicating “severe” air pollution, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board.
The Commission for Air Quality Management on Thursday imposed emergency measures under Stage 3 of the Graded Response Action Plan, or GRAP, in the National Capital Region.
The GRAP is set of emergency measures that are implemented in Delhi and the National Capital Region to control air pollution.
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