Cold tightened its grip on North claiming five lives, including two children, in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan as icy winds swept most parts of the region plummeting temperatures by several notches below normal.
The Srinagar-Jammu National Highway connecting Kashmir with the rest of the country remained closed for the third consecutive day as the Valley and the Ladakh region reeled under intense cold conditions with the night temperature in Pahalgam plunging to the season’s lowest of minus 12.2 degrees Celsius.
Cold waves swept Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh with minimum temperatures falling several notches below normal even as fog reduced visibility in morning at some places.
Freezing cold swept Amritsar, which recorded a below normal low of 0.8 degrees.
In the past 24 hours three persons including 45-year-old Hariprasad of Andgau village, 7-year-old Neeraj of Daulatpur village and a six-year-old girl from Diyanatnagar village died due to biting cold conditions in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district.
Two beggars were found dead on Wednesday in open areas of Jalupura and Subhash Chowk in Jaipur which recorded season’s lowest minimum temperature even as icy winds and fog continued unabated in Rajasthan affecting normal life and vehicular traffic. Elsewhere in Rajasthan, Churu recorded the lowest temperature of minus 1.6 degrees on Wednesday night, Pilani recorded a minimum of 1.3 degrees followed by Sriganganagar at 1.9 degrees and Bikaner 2.0 degrees.
In Uttar Pradesh, minimum temperature in the State was recorded in Agra at 4.7 degrees, with the MeT officials predicting moderate to dense fog at a few places during the morning hours and frost would occur at isolated places during the next two days.
Hisar, Bhiwani and Narnaul in Haryana reeled under extreme cold recording minimum temperature of one degrees each.
Chandigarh recorded a cold night at 5.6 degrees.
