39 killed as blinding fog spikes travel in India

[senorpepr]

NEW DELHI (AFP) - At least 39 people were killed, mostly in road accidents, as dense fog blanketed northern India and a cold wave further tightened its grip across the populous region of 300 million people, officials and reports said.

The Press Trust of India said 19 motorists were killed in separate fog-related highway accidents in the state of Uttar Pradesh during the past 24 hours, adding that 11 people, mostly homeless and elderly, also died in the region due to the biting cold.

Poor visibility grounded Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's helicopter in foggy New Delhi, forcing him to abandon plans to visit the Uttar Pradesh town of Etawah on Wednesday to attend a local festival, airport officials here said.

Meerut district police chief R. K. Tiwari ordered trucks and cars to move in orderly queues to prevent highway pile-ups.

The blinding fog has also claimed nine lives in road crashes in the northern state of Haryana since last Friday.

Swirling fog held up international and domestic flights for hours to and from New Delhi, where visibility dropped to less than 60 metres (197 feet) Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee flying back from the Uttar Pradesh state capital of Lucknow was forced to land at Jaipur as fresh fog blinded the runway in New Delhi, an official from his office told AFP.

Temperatures dipped to seven degrees Celsius (44.6 Fahrenheit) Wednesday in New Delhi and the holy Sikh city of Amritsar shivered as the mercury there plummeted to the northern plain's lowest of 2.6 degrees Celsius (36.6 Fahrenheit), the weather office said.

"We have more bad news for New Delhi. The clouds will remain and temperatures fall further in the next 48 hours," a weather office spokesman said as the city administration frantically prepared shelters for the thousands of local homeless people.

Last winter's cold spell killed almost 1,400 people, mostly among the elderly and homeless.

Hundreds of Indians also die each summer when temperatures routinely touch 49 degrees (120 Fahrenheit).