The entire northern region, including Panjab, Haryana and national capital Delhi was covered with a thick blanket of fog today again. The mercury however improved a little but the chill kept the people indoors in most areas. Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and some other areas had intermittent rains, throughout the day. In the Kashmir valley, white flakes covered several parts, the second snowfall this season. Earlier the valley experienced a snowfall on the second week of November. In Uttaar Pradesh, 30 people have died as a result of the cold wave.<br/><br/>Jammu and Kashmir is having heavy snow fall in the upper reaches of entire Pirpanchal range since morning. The Jammu Srinagar National Highway has been closed for vehicular movement at Patnitop and at Jawahar Tunnel near Banihal in Ramban district. Taffic police officials told AIR that the highway has been closed to avoid any untoward incident on the road and clearing of snow is going on. The plains of Jammu region had moderate rainfall this morning and the temperature dipped in the area. The sky is overcst and it has been raining intermittently at many places in the region.<br/><br/>Failure of northern Power grid due to a technical snag as a result of thick fog threw life out of gear in the holy city of Amritsar in Punjab for the 2nd day today. Power failure and thick cover of fog led to cancellation and delays of domestic and international flights and the rail traffic was hampered with almost all trains running 2 to 6 hours behind schedule. Passengers were stranded for hours braving the bone-chilling temperature although not a single train was cancelled, many inculding Tata, Mori, Shan-e-Punjab and Shatabdi ran late. Vehicular traffic remained virtually off the road as people on a chilled sunday prefered to remain indoors.<br/><br/>Though the cilly weather has put life out of gear, the rain is useful to rabi crop, especially wheat, barley and also fruit crops such as kinnows.<br/><br/>In the national capital, air operations at IGI airport were affected again, a day after dense fog played havoc leading to delay and cancellation of several flights. Due to operational reasons, 12 domestic fights were cancelled and about 40 others delayed by upto three hours today. Airport sources said, 12 flights of SpiceJet, Jet Airways and Kingfisher airlines to Amritsar, Leh, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Srinagar and Kolkata were cancelled either due to bad weather condition at the destinations or other operational reasons.<br/><br/>The Met department at the airport said, the runway visibility was recorded at 2,000 metres for the main runway and at 1,600 metres for new runway in the morning.<br/><br/>AIR correspondent reports, over 200 flights were either delayed by up to five hours or rescheduled or diverted to various destinations yesterday when thick fog and a cable fault disrupted flight operations. Airlines are finding it difficult to maintain the schedule, which went haywire due to dense fog and glitch in the cable of runway visual range measuring instrument leading to a halt in air operations for over eight hours.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, passengers whose flights were cancelled or delayed thronged the reservation counters for alternative flights. They also complained about the alleged poor treatment from the airlines staff at the counters.<br/><br/>Dense fog and cold continue to disrupt normal life in several parts of north India. Three train accidents in Uttar Pradesh yesterday killed ten people and injured 40. Rail, road and air traffic continues to be affected in many parts. The railways have ordered an investigation into the accidents.<br/><br/>Large parts of North India, including Delhi, plunged back into darkness late last night as the regional electricity grid collapsed due to dense fog, hours after it was restored.