North India cold wave intensifies, 26 dead

Six more people have died in Uttar Pradesh due to an intensifying winter wave, bring the toll to 26 so far, even as a thick fog continued to disrupt road and rail traffic in much of north India, including New Delhi on Monday.

In Delhi the temperature dipped to 4.7 degrees Celsius, 4 degrees below normal while Meerut in Uttar Pradesh recorded a low of 2.2 degrees Celsius.

Three trains were cancelled and 55 trains were delayed due to the severe fog in Delhi.

Visibility at Delhi´s Indira Gandhi International Airport was also severely affected causing disruptions in flights.

Heavy fog on Monday also disrupted flight operations at the Kolkata airport for more than two hours.

Minimum temperatures dipped up to five degrees in parts of Punjab and Haryana, as Hisar and Rohtak both recorded a low of 1.6 degree Celsius while Amritsar posted a minimum of 2 degrees Celsius.

The Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir also experienced the biting cold with the skiing resort of Gulmarg recording a minimum of minus 7.4 degrees Celsius on Sunday.

Water supply lines in the state´s summer capital city Srinagar froze as the minimum settled at minus 2.8 degrees Celsius.