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Dense fog hits air, rail and road services in Jharkhand
Dense fog on Sunday morning, disrupted air, rail and road traffic across Jharkhand even as visibility dropped to 50 m in the state capital Ranchi with Met office forecasting a similar condition for the next two days.
Dense fog on Sunday morning, disrupted air, rail and road traffic across Jharkhand even as visibility dropped to 50 m in the state capital Ranchi with Met office forecasting a similar condition for the next two days.
The fog caused two road accidents in Ranchi in which a person was killed and another injured. The first accident was reported in Ranchi’s Tupudana neighbourhood, where a dumper hit a bus shelter due to poor visibility.
“The driver of the vehicle died on the spot,” said Sujit Rai, Tupudana police station chief.
The other accident was reported from Ratu Road, where two cars were involved in a head-on collision, injuring one person.
While flight in the morning was diverted, a number of trains and buses were running behind schedule due to the fog, sources said.
“ A flight of Go-Air was diverted due to poor visibility but the of the flight were on schedule,” Anil Vikram, director of Birsa Munda Airport.
The flight was diverted to Kolkata due to poor visibility of 50 m instead of the normal of 1,200 m at the airport in the morning, he said.
Met officials said that if the visibility falls below 1,000 m, it can affect landing of flights and also impact the train speed.
Normal visibility, however, returned to Ranchi after 10.30 am. “Big rivers in the northern parts of India, mainly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, caused formation of fog, which spread and enveloped major parts of Jharkhand,” said DG Hedau, forecasting officer at Ranchi Meteorological Centre.
Parts of Jharkhand might experience dense fog condition for the next two days, he said.
“The night temperature is likely to drop by two to three degrees Celsius from the current temperature from Monday.”
Ranchi on Sunday recorded a minimum temperature of 15.4 degree Celsius, 4.8 degree above the normal, Met officials said.
The fog also affected long-distance trains, railway officials said.
The Delhi bound Rajdhani Express on Sunday, was rescheduled to depart at 10.10 pm instead of 5.55 pm and the Hatia-Yesvantpur Express has been rescheduled to depart at 6.25am on Monday instead of Sunday.
The long-route buses are running 2-3 hours behind schedule. “Long distance buses that depart in the morning, are running behind schedule due to poor visibility. Speed of buses has also been restricted to avoid any untoward incident,” said Krishna Mohan, president of Ranchi Bus Owners’ Association.
More than 300 buses arrive and depart from the state capital every day.
