LAHORE: Dense fog continued to disrupt rail, road and air traffic in the plains of Punjab and adjoining Sindh on Friday, claiming two lives in a road accident in Sahiwal.

Two motorcyclists were killed when their motorcycle rammed into a donkey cart on a fog bound road in Sahiwal. In another accident, three motorcyclists were injured critically when hit by a bus again in poor visibility caused by fog in Sahiwal.

Fog had started enveloping the plain areas early last night. It reduced visibility to zero at the Lahore airport forcing its immediate closure for the night, disrupting the flight schedule and causing a great deal of inconvenience to passengers. The airport was opened in the morning but there was a huge backlog to clear.

Motorway too was closed from Lahore to Lilla in Salt Range, Pindi Bhattian, Faisalabad and Gojra in view of extremely poor visibility.

The motorway authority spokesperson Imran Shah said dense fog from Kharrian to Ahmadpur Sharqia in Punjab and adjacent Sindh disrupted the flow of traffic last night and on Friday morning. Vehicular traffic had to move at a slow pace.

Meanwhile, he said the authority was adopting all possible precautionary measures to avoid road accidents on the fog blanketed roads. But it was the primary responsibility of the travelling public to adopt road safety measures.

He reminded people that the best travelling time in fog was between 10am to 6pm. “They should maintain adequate distance between vehicles, avoid over speeding and use of cell phones, sudden application of brakes to avoid pile ups.

Published in Dawn December 31st, 2016