There was little respite from freezing cold in the national capital but the air quality was recorded in the ‘severe’ category in several areas on Friday morning. According to the data provided by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), the Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 418 in the ‘severe’ category in Anand Vihar, at 372 in ‘very poor’ category in RK Puram and at 429 in ‘severe’ category in Rohini.
Meanwhile, the major pollutants PM 2.5 was recorded at 302 in ‘very poor’ category and PM 10 at 283 in ‘poor category’ in Lodhi Road area, according to the Air Quality Index (AQI). At least 19 Delhi-bound trains were reported to be running late due to low visibility in the Northern Railway region on Friday morning. A senior Northern Railway official said that the Bhubaneshwar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express was delayed by seven hours, followed by Nanded-Amritsar Sachkhand Express running behind schedule by six hours. Meanwhile, the Jabalpur-Hazrat Nizamuddin Express, Hyderabad-New Delhi Telangana Express and Lok Manya Tilak-Haridwar Express were all delayed by five hours.
Running late by three hours and 30 minutes was the Katra-Mangalore Navyug Express, followed by the Howrah-New Delhi Poorva Express which was delayed by three hours. On Thursday, 21 Delhi-bound trains were delayed.
However, the flight operations were normal at Delhi Airport.
The IMD has predicted that a dense layer of fog will prevail in the national capital on Friday and the maximum and minimum temperatures will hover around 22 and 6 degrees Celsius Celsius respectively. It further said that the air quality would fluctuate between the “very poor” and “severe” categories until widespread rains washed away the pollutants.