A mother and child wrapped in warm clothes venture out in biting cold in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Jan. 9: The severe cold conditions continued to test the nerve of Bihar residents today with over half-a-dozen places remaining under the grip of the cold wave. Keeping the chill in mind, the human resource development (HRD) department today issued a directive for closure of all the schools of the state till January 14.

HRD department principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said the decision to extend the closure of the schools was taken after reviewing the weather conditions.

The HRD department had issued a similar directive on January 2, stating that all the schools of the state would remain closed till January 8. But the prevailing cold condition led to the extension of the closure.

The minimum temperature in the state capital was 5.1°C, about four degrees below normal. Darbhanga was the coldest place in the state on Sunday. According to data collected by automated weather stations (AWS) in districts, the minimum temperature in Darbhanga was 3.1°C, about six degrees below normal. Munger was the second coldest place with a minimum of 3.9°C. Jehanabad (5°C), Harnaut (5.1°C), Muzaffarpur (4.5°C) and Siwan (5.2°C) were also under the grip of cold wave on Sunday.

Major parts of Bihar are facing day cold condition, with the temperature remaining low even in daytime. Patna, with the maximum of 14.8°C, recorded the lowest maximum temperature of this winter.

According to the AWS data, many other places, including Bhabua (14.4°C), Begusarai (13.3°C), Bhojpur (13.4°C), Buxar (14.3°C), Madhubani (12.1°C), Darbhanga (12.1°C), Jehanabad (12.3°C), Jamui (14.7), Katihar (15.2°C), Munger (10.6°C), Muzaffarpur (12.2), Siwan (11.2°C) and Vaishali (10.7°C), witnessed day cold conditions.

Sources in the weather office said the cold conditions would continue for the next 48 hours. Foggy conditions would continue to prevail during this period.

“A thick cover of fog has developed over a stretch right from north-western India to Bihar. This is not allowing the sun to shine brightly and leading to drop in the day temperature,” said Pradhan Parth Sarthi, the academic coordinator of Centre for Environmental Science of Central University of Bihar.

The foggy condition took its toll on the operation of flights on Sunday also, leading to cancellation of GoAir’s Delhi-Patna-Delhi morning flight and Jet Airways’ Calcutta-Patna-Calcutta flight. Most of the flights that operated landed and took off way behind the schedule.

IndiGo’s Calcutta-Patna flight operated over four hours behind the schedule. Even Air India’s both flights on Delhi-Patna-Delhi route operated behind the schedule.

With the state reeling under cold wave conditions, the disaster management department (DMD) has decided to keep its control room functional till 8pm from Monday.

People can inform the control room about their problems dialling 0612-2217305. Till Sunday, the control room functioned till 6pm. Though DMD has not received information about cold-related deaths from any district yet, sources claimed six persons died fromcold so far.

“We cannot comment on such reports unless the district administration concerned confirms such deaths,” said an official of DMD.