Three people were killed and 40 injured in separate fog-related accidents in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states on Tuesday. Bitter cold gripped northern India, prompting states to take measures such as suspending nighttime bus operations, lowering speed limits in some areas and changing school start times.
Thick fog blanketed India’s Ganga plain, including Delhi, on Wednesday, reducing visibility in the city and affecting road traffic and train operations.
On Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government stopped running national highway buses at night. The maximum speed limit on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway has been fixed from 100 kilometers per hour to 75 kilometers per hour in view of dense fog, officials said.
One person was killed and 24 others were injured when a bus collided with a truck in low visibility due to thick fog on the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida on Tuesday, police said. In another incident, a truck laden with lentils hit a highway divider and overturned in the Dudri area of Greater Noida, police said.
In a separate incident, a truck driver was killed and six others were injured when vehicles collided on the Bulandshahr-Aligarh road in Arnia, police said. In Kaushambi, a 25-year-old man was traveling with his friend on a motorcycle when their two-wheeler collided with a stationary truck near the Sayara flyover on the Prayagraj-Kanpur road and died instantly.
Eight people were injured when their van collided with a stationary truck due to poor visibility in Sitapur, police said, adding that four passengers were seriously injured in the accident near the village of Cali.
Dense fog on Tuesday morning also reduced visibility in most parts of Haryana and Punjab. According to the police, two police vehicles in the convoy of Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala were involved in an accident on the Hisar-Sirsa highway. All are safe and one bodyguard was injured.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that all schools in the state will reopen at 10 am from December 21 to January 21 due to the cold.
(according to PTI input)
