Fog affects flights, trains operations in Chennai

Chennai, Jan 23: A thick blanket of fog around the airport area since 0400 hrs here today affected the flight operations at Kamaraj domestic airport and Anna international airport for two hours.

Airport sources told UNI that the Colombo-Chennai Air Sahara flight, scheduled to land here at 0440 hrs, was diverted to Colombo, while the Mumbai-Chennai Air India flight, scheduled to arrive here at 0500 hrs, did not take off from Mumbai.

The Sharjah-Chennai Air India flight scheduled to touch down here at 0550 hrs was routed to Thiruvananthapuram, while the Muscat-Chennai Omen Airlines flight scheduled to land here at 0600 hrs was diverted to Hyderabad.

However, the flights, which were diverted, later started landing one by one, the sources added.

At the Kamaraj domestic airport, flight operations were affected between 0400-0730 hrs due to the fog. Flights to Port Blair, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Madurai suffered detention. The filights were allowed to land or take off only after 0800 hrs.

Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi, who was scheduled to leave for New Delhi by an Indian flight at 0640 hrs, left for the National Capital at 0840 hrs, the sources added.

Meanwhile, train services on the Chennai-Egmore and Chengalpattu section were also affected due to the fog, Southern Railway sources said.

All the incoming trains from southern districts to Chennai Egmore suffered delays. Suburban train services between Tambaram and Chennai-Beach were also affected but outgoing trains from Chennai Egmore left without any delay.

Road traffic was also badly affected between Tambaram and Guindy following the haze, blocking visibility. A large number of vehicles were stationed on either side of the road.

However, vehicles fitted with special yellow headlights faced no problems and moved without any difficulty, police sources said.

UNI