Delhi-NCR dense fog disrupts view — buses, truck, car, bike crash in succession as low visibility causes highway mishap

Dense smog shrouded Delhi-NCR on Sunday morning as AQI spiked to ‘severe plus’ category. As the toxic haze reduced visibility considerably, multiple vehicles involving buses, a truck, car and motorcycle crashed in succession.

In two major pile-ups, multiple vehicles were involved in a road accident on fog-hit highways in Haryana on 14 December, NDTV reported. With remarkably reduced visibility on roadways, drivers of motor vehicles struggled to navigate and ended up in a chain collision at Dhiktana Moda on National Highway 52.

At around 8:00 AM, two Haryana roadways buses, a dumper truck, a car and a motorcycle crashed in succession. The series of events ensued after a Kaithal roadways bus rammed into a dumper truck. Poor visibility along the route resulted in another crash in which another state transport bus coming from behind struck the vehicles already involved.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) in its latest weather bulletin warned about dense fog from Monday morning over several states. The press release states, “Dense fog conditions very likely to prevail during morning hours in isolated pockets of Uttar Pradesh on 15th & 16th with very dense fog over Uttar Pradesh on 15th December.”

It added, “Dense fog conditions very likely to prevail during morning hours in isolated pockets of Northeast India during 15th-19th, Himachal Pradesh during 15th-17th, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, northeast Madhya Pradesh on 15th & 16th December.”

As per the report, visibility of less than 50 metre prevailed at isolated pockets of Uttar Pradesh in the morning hours of 13 December, while Haryana and Delhi-NCR reported visibility in 50 to 200 metre range.

Meanwhile, residents of Delhi-NCR can expect partly cloudy sky with mist and shallow fog during the night. The maximum temperatures will be above normal by around 1.5 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperatures continue to hover in the normal range for this period.

Calm surface winds of around 5 kmph are likely during the afternoon hours but AQI level continues to be ‘severe plus,’ that is above 450 mark. With no rain prediction for the coming days, the air pollution crisis is here to stay.