Thousands of tourists flock to Agra, Uttar Pradesh, every day to catch a glimpse of the Taj Mahal, the symbol of love built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
However, with northern India reeling under a cold wave and a dense fog enveloping the skies, tourists had to stare at a wall of “nothing” from the Taj View Point, which offers the best overall view of the monument, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The dense fog in the city had shrouded the Taj Mahal, making it appear as if it had disappeared.
This broke the Internet into a meme fest, with netizens claiming that the disappearance of the Taj Mahal was a work of “nature's VFX”
“North India winter doing VFX on a Wonder of the World,” a netizen quipped.
He added, “From Taj View Point the monument literally vanished into a white wall—visibility dropped so much that even the outline was barely there, leaving tourists staring at ‘nothing’ where the Taj should be.”
“Where is Taj, bro?” a user asked.
Several areas in Uttar Pradesh have been shrouded in dense fog, with no sunshine reported on Wednesday. Cold winds intensified the chill, while poor visibility during morning hours slowed traffic and increased the risk of accidents.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that foggy conditions are likely to persist during early mornings in the coming days as winter intensifies. Weather officials have forecast dense fog on Thursday and Friday.
UP CM asks traffic police to stay on "high alert"
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath issued a series of directives to ensure social welfare and road-safety arrangements amid dense fog and cold wave-like conditions across the state.
The directives follow scenes of homeless people grappling with cold weather and a series of fog-related road accidents across the state on Tuesday that claimed 25 lives and left 59 people injured.
The worst tragedy occurred on the Yamuna Expressway in Mathura, where a multi-vehicle pile-up in dense fog turned into an inferno, killing at least 13 people.
Delhi-NCR witnesses dense fog
Morning commuters in Delhi and neighbouring cities, such as Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Noida, faced delays as dense fog led to low visibility, prompting motorists to exercise caution. Vehicles were seen moving slowly on major arterial roads and highways.
According to the weather officials, the visibility at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Palam, was 100 metres in the morning.
