KOLKATA: The most dense fog this season on Saturday crippled early flight operations at Kolkata airport and disrupted train services.
Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway services were hit with the heavy fog bringing down visibility . The disruption in local train services affected commuter traffic that was fortunately lower than a weekday . Long distance trains arriving at Howrah were stranded at various places. The sudden drop in mercury also led to a rail fracture in the Sealdah south section on Saturday morning. This was repaired before trains could pass over the affected stretch.
At Kolkata airport, visibility dropped to near-zero after midnight, forcing diversion of several flights to nearby airports. With flight operations shut from 12am to 8.30am, nearly 40 flights were delayed.
As visibility plunged at night, a number of incoming international flights were diverted to Dhaka and Hyderabad. These include China Eastern Airlines flight from Kunming, Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur and Qatar Airways flights from Doha. These flights arrived in Kolkata only after fog cleared and operations resumed on Saturday morning.
Though the airport is equipped with instrument landing that allows operation till visibility is 50 metre, the situ ation was far worse, necessitating the shutdown.
20/12/15 The Times Of India
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Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway services were hit with the heavy fog bringing down visibility . The disruption in local train services affected commuter traffic that was fortunately lower than a weekday . Long distance trains arriving at Howrah were stranded at various places. The sudden drop in mercury also led to a rail fracture in the Sealdah south section on Saturday morning. This was repaired before trains could pass over the affected stretch.
At Kolkata airport, visibility dropped to near-zero after midnight, forcing diversion of several flights to nearby airports. With flight operations shut from 12am to 8.30am, nearly 40 flights were delayed.
As visibility plunged at night, a number of incoming international flights were diverted to Dhaka and Hyderabad. These include China Eastern Airlines flight from Kunming, Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur and Qatar Airways flights from Doha. These flights arrived in Kolkata only after fog cleared and operations resumed on Saturday morning.
Though the airport is equipped with instrument landing that allows operation till visibility is 50 metre, the situ ation was far worse, necessitating the shutdown.
20/12/15 The Times Of India
