Fogs wreak havoc in N India

Men walk on rail tracks in dense fog in New Delhi yesterday as passengers, who were travelling on the Prayagraj Express, react on their arrival at the railway station in Allahabad after train accident (Inset). At least 10 people were killed when five express trains collided in separate incidents in the fog-bound northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Dense fogs wreaked havoc last morning in North India as five trains collided in three separate incidents, the northern grid tripped and flights were delayed or diverted.
At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured in three separate accidents involving trains in the fog-bound northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, police and railway officials said.
In the first accident, an inter-city express rammed into the back of a stationary passenger train near the town of Sarai Bhupat, 250km southwest of the state capital Lucknow.
Additional police director general Brij Lal said 10 passengers were injured including three whose condition doctors described as "grave."
Ten people were killed in the second accident 45 minutes later when two other express trains collided in similar fashion, around 80km southwest of Lucknow, Lal said.
Three of those killed were women, rail officials at the accident site said.
Senior railways official MN Srivastava said the impact in both train collisions had been minimised by the fact that the trains were travelling at low speeds because of the dense fog.
In a third accident, a passenger train slammed into a tractor at an unmanned rail crossing, officer Lal said, adding that three people on the tractor were injured in the mishap, near Allahabad city, also in Uttar Pradesh.
There were no injuries to passengers on the train, he said.
Visibility at the three accident sites was down to around 30 metres (100 feet).
The string of accidents threw train services into disarray across India, rail officials said in New Delhi.

Power grid trips

The power failure caused a power blackout in many parts of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh and seriously hitting trains and flights.
Electricity supply was restored within a few hours in most parts of Punjab and Haryana, the two states where train traffic was the worst affected.
The tripping in the northern grid took place at 3.02 am.
"The snag developed due to thick fog over Punjab and Haryana," Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) chairman H S Brar said. Hectic work was on to restore power supply in all the states.
Power supply had been restored in 60 percent of the areas, Brar said.
The tripping of the grid severely affected power-driven trains.
In Ambala, 15 trains got delayed by one to three hours. In total, over 50 trains were affected in Ambala, Ferozepur and Delhi divisions, he said.
The railway authorities deployed diesel engines to overcome the crisis.
Flights affected
Hundreds of air and rail passengers were stranded in the bitterly cold national capital on Saturday as dense fog led to numerous flight cancellations and train delays.
A fault in the instrument landing system at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport and "tripping" of the northern grid owing to heavy fog further added to the woes of people.
The visibility dropped to zero metres in the city early on Saturday and continued to remain below 50 metres at 10 am.
Over three dozen domestic flights and a dozen international flights were delayed for hours and many were cancelled. The runway visibility at the IGI airport was below 125 metres, as opposed to the minimum 150 metres required for a flight to take off.
"All flight operations to and from Delhi have been affected due to dense fog and the snag in the Runway Visual Range (RVR) instrument located on the main runway. Many international and domestic flights coming to Delhi have been diverted," said an airport official.