As a bitter cold wave continues to grip north India, at least three people were killed due to separate vehicle pile-ups in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh amid dense fog on Sunday, according to police.
Two men,
including a truck driver, were burned to death following a multi-vehicle pileup on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway in Haryana’s Nuh on Sunday morning amid dense fog, according to police. The accident caused a long traffic jam and severely disrupted traffic on the expressway.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, a similar vehicle-pileup involving at least 20 vehicles on the Delhi-Lucknow National Highway left a person dead and at least 24 injured, police said. The accident occurred near Shahwajpur Dor village in the Gajraula Kotwali police station area. Upon receiving information, police teams and ambulances rushed to the spot to assist the injured.
The fog was so dense that drivers were unable to spot the vehicles ahead, leading to one crash after another. Later, the police used cranes to remove the damaged vehicles from the road and restore the traffic.
Cold Wave Grips North India
Meanwhile, cold wave conditions prevailed in most of northern India, with temperatures dropping to 1.7 degrees Celsius in Punjab’s Amritsar. Jammu and Kashmir’s Sonamarg recorded a temperature of -8.9 degrees, and Srinagar recorded -4.7 degrees.
The higher hills of Himachal Pradesh saw light snowfall at isolated places. The Shimla meteorological office stated that light snowfall occurred in Lahaul and Spiti district’s Koksar and Hansa villages, while the weather remained dry in most parts of the state.
A thick blanket of fog engulfed Delhi and its adjoining NCR cities on Sunday, with the visibility plummeting to near zero as biting cold conditions persisted across the city, as the minimum temperature settled at 5.3 degrees, 2.3 notches below the season’s average.
In Haryana, Narnaul recorded a low of 5.2 degrees Celsius, while Gurugram’s minimum temperature settled at 5.6 degrees Celsius. Ambala recorded a low of 6.8 degrees, while Rohtak saw its minimum temperature drop to 7 degrees Celsius.
(with inputs from PTI)
