16 die due to cold, fog in UP

Dense fog and falling mercury hit normal life, resulting in 16 casualties in different parts of Uttar Pradesh and delay in flights and trains.
Reports reaching here said five people were killed in separate accidents in Barabanki and three in Fatehpur, besides the chill claimed three lives in Basti, two each in Kushinagar and Siddhartnagar and one in Chandauli.
Dense sheet of fog also affected train and air traffic causing hardships to the passengers leaving them stranded at the railway stations and airport for hours.
Officials at the Chaudhry Charan Singh Airport here said flights were running behind schedule with at least three flights of Air India, Jet Airways and Indigo Airlines departing over 90 minutes behind schedule.

Similarly, trains including Avadh-Assam Express, Delhi- Faizabad, Vaishali, Padmavat, Saryu-Yamuna, Shaheed, Gorakhdham and Farrakha running three to ten hours behind schedule, officials at the railways said.
The Met office here said dense fog occurred at many places in eastern UP and at isolated places in western UP.

Night temperatures, however, appreciably rose in Faizabad division on Monday, rose in Gorakhpur division, fell in Meerut division and changed little in remaining divisions.
They were appreciably below normal in Meerut division and below normal in Varanasi division.
Lowest minimum temperature over the state was 3.1 degrees Celsius recorded at Muzaffarnagar.
They warned that dense to very dense fog would occur at many places over the state tomorrow.