Cold wave updates: Flights delayed and diverted, trains cancelled as dense fog engulfs parts of country     

Cold waves and dense fog, which have engulfed parts of the country for the last few days, disrupted the movements of flights and trains on Tuesday again.

- The Indian Railways today cancelled 290 trains, diverted 18 and rescheduled nearly 80 due to bad weather and other reasons. Also, flights were also delayed and cancelled due to low visibility.  

- Three flights were cancelled and several others were delayed at West Bengal's Bagdogra airport due to extreme fog. AAI Bagdogra Director Md Ali said three flights of Vistara, Indigo and Spicejet had been cancelled. 

- In a tweet, SpiceJet said due to bad weather in Bagdogra, all departures and arrivals and their consequential flights may get affected. 

"Passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status at - https://book.spicejet.com/FlightStatus.aspx," it said.

- In another tweet, the airline said that all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights might get affected due to expected poor visibility in Darbhanga (DBR), Delhi (DEL), Amritsar (ATQ), Jammu, (IXJ), Tirupati (TIR), Jabalpur (JLR), Kolkata (CCU), Patna (PAT), Gwalior (GWL), Kanpur (KNU), Bagdogra (IXB). 

- Vistara in a tweet posted at 10:32 am said flight UK725 from Delhi to Bagdogra had been diverted to Kolkata due to low visibility at Bagdogra airport. 

- Commenting on the tweet, a passenger, Priyanka Das, asked the airline to allow people to avail of a refund and go back to Delhi. "3 hours of sitting idle in a flight in Kolkata knowing the flight ahead to Dibrugarh is cancelled what are we supposed to do with this info? Let people avail a refund and go back to Delhi if willing," she wrote on Twitter. 

- Vistara apologised for the inconvenience caused but said, unfortunately, there are certain instances it can't control and that can sometimes cause unexpected delays. The airline said it will not be able to assist with a full refund. "However, we shall assist you with travelling back to Delhi and we will arrange the travel to Dibrugarh on the next available flight," it said. 

- Later, the airline said the flight which was diverted to Kolkata had departed from Kolkata at 2:49 pm and was expected to arrive in Bagdogra at 3:40 pm.

- India's central forecasting agency today said a cold day and severe cold day is mainly over south Haryana and west UP. Day temperatures improved over north Punjab, north Haryana and north Rajasthan. 

- RK Jenamni, a scientist at IMD, said dense to very dense fog will continue to prevail in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.

- There will be an improvement on December 29 because of a western disturbance which will bring fresh snowfall in J&K, Leh and Himachal Pradesh. There will be a drizzle in north Punjab on December 29. 

- In Delhi, the lowest temperature of 4.0 degrees celsius was recorded at Aya Nagar and a cold wave was still prevailing at isolated places. 

- From December 28 onwards there will be a significant improvement as the cold wave will go due to western disturbance, Jenamani said Tuesday. Fresh cold wave conditions will prevail again from 31st December-1st January.