Volcano effect: Hundreds of passengers stranded in Mumbai Airport

MUMBAI - Hundreds of air passengers are facing huge delays on Chhatrapati Shivaji Intarnational Airport at Mumbai as international air service disruptions intensified after a cloud of ash from a volcano in Iceland spread across Europe.

All the Air India flights from Mumbai to the United States of America, Canada, and London have been called off.

The flights flying towards India are also delayed indefinitely, thus, causing inconvenience to the passengers moving to and fro.

“Yesterday night also we came over here. There was a complete chaos and we are not able to get through things properly. Situation is not clear. Of course it is difficult for the flight authorities also to make out, but still we feel there is no proper feed back from them,” said Chetan Shah, a passenger.

“The tape is same as last night what it is going on … The same 220 flights and all that. Again they are saying we have to go back, my wife and son are inside. They are negotiating. Some of them are saying it may take 3-4 days. We can’t get our tickets rescheduled. It is really difficult,” Shah added.

“We were supposed to fly back yesterday. We got as far as immigration, crossed baggage check up, and got boarding pass and everything. We have been told that our flight has been cancelled because of an eruption,” said Clawrence Rotriguez, a passenger from London.

Iceland’s second volcano eruption in less than a month began under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in the south of the country on Wednesday.

Between 700 and 800 people were evacuated from their homes in the remote, lightly populated area 125 kilometres east of Reykjavik, as melted glacier water caused massive flooding.

Last month, the first volcano eruption at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier since 1823 — and Iceland’s first since 2004 — briefly forced 600 people from their homes in the same area.

Iceland lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the highly volatile boundary between the Eurasian and North American continental plates. (ANI)