NEW DELHI, June 14 (Xinhua) -- All flights have been cancelled since Thursday morning at the international airport in India's northern city of Chandigarh due to poor visibility, said the airport spokesman Deepesh Joshi.
Poor visibility is due to the prevailing dusty conditions.
Chandigarh, the joint capital city of northern states of Haryana and Punjab, is located around 160 miles from Delhi.
Speaking to Xinhua over phone, Joshi said that in ideal conditions, visibility of over 2.5 km is required for flights to take-off or landing, whereas presently the visibility is below 1.5 km.
"The cause of poor visibility is because of prevailing dusty conditions here, and it's getting from bad to worse with every passing hour," he added.
According to him, till 1:00 p.m. hours local time, the landing and take-off of as many as 16 flights had been cancelled, and there was no chance of improvement in the weather conditions.
On an average, there are around 37 flight operations per day at the Chandigarh airport.
The quality of air in Delhi and surrounding areas had worsened over the past two days, even as hazy condition continues to prevail due to the incoming dusty storms from the western state of Rajasthan which is facing extremely dry weather conditions.
The "severe" condition of air quality forced the country's Ministry of Environment to appeal to the people to avoid prolonged outdoor exposure.
The ministry also cautioned that the current dusty conditions are likely to continue over the next three days in the Indian capital and its surrounding areas.
