Tourists face difficulties seeing Taj Mahal amid dense layer of fog in Agra

AGRA: As the winter chill continues to grip parts of North India, tourists in UP's Agra faced difficulties on their visit to the historical monument Taj Mahal as the city on Tuesday morning was engulfed by a dense layer of fog, significantly affecting the visibility.

The tourists were unable to see the Taj Mahal even from the Royal Gate and Lady Diana Bench. The Royal Gate, also known as the Great Gate or Darwaza-i-rauza, is one of the components of the Taj Mahal complex and the main entrance gate for the monument.

Tourists were unable to spot the Taj Mahal from the main entrance gate.

The visibility due to the dense layered fog was so low that tourists faced difficulties in capturing the Taj Mahal even from the Lady Diana Bench, which is a closer spot to the historical monument as compared to the Royal Gate. Lady Diana Bench is a marble bench facing the main building of the Taj Mahal. The bench got its name after Princess Diana's picture which she got clicked sitting on the bench during her Taj Mahal visit in 1992.

Other parts of North India too experienced winter chills on Tuesday morning, as cities such as Prayagraj, Ghaziabad and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and Moga in Punjab faced cold waves, engulfed in fog">dense fog.

The temperature in Prayagraj on Tuesday at 8:30 am was recorded at 12.4 degrees Celsius, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Due to the cold wave in the city, people gathered around bonfires for warmth on the streets. One of the residents, Vivek Pandey, while speaking to ANI said that the city has been experiencing extreme cold waves for two days now. "It has been very cold for the last two days.

Today it has become very cold. There has been fog since night," he said. The Moga city in Punjab also witnessed conditions of almost zero visibility as fog">dense fog engulfed the city and the temperature dipped further.

The IMD on Tuesday morning released satellite images showing a layer of fog spreading over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The Delhi-NCR region was also covered with a dense layer of fog on Tuesday morning, as the temperature dropped to almost 7 degrees in the national capital, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Meanwhile, the Delhi airport experienced delays in both arrivals and departures for about 30 flights including international due to fog">dense fog, as per the Delhi Airport Flight Information Display System data on Tuesday morning. The sources suggested that the fog conditions are likely to affect more number of flights in the day.

The IMD also warned of possible health impacts on people due to the fog">dense fog in the national capital.

"Dense fog contains particulate matter and other pollutants and in case exposed it gets lodged in the lungs, clogging them and decreasing their functional capacity which increases episodes of wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath," IMD said in a release on Monday.

The IMD release further stated that the fog conditions may tend to irritate the membranes of the eye causing various infections leading to redness or swelling of the eye.