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Girl suicide 'over Big Bang fear' | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
A girl in India has committed suicide after watching TV reports that a physics experiment could bring about the end of the world, her family says. | |
Sixteen-year-old Chaya poisoned herself at her home in the central city of Indore, her father, Bihari Lal, said. | |
He said Chaya had been worried the "world would end" when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched on. | |
Some Indian channels held discussions about the European experiment featuring doomsday predictions. | |
'Village would die' | 'Village would die' |
The £5bn ($8.75bn) machine - which aims to recreate the conditions that existed at the beginning of the universe, the so-called Big Bang - was switched on early on Wednesday. | |
Set on the Swiss-French border, it is designed to smash protons together along a 27km-long tunnel with cataclysmic force and scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics. | Set on the Swiss-French border, it is designed to smash protons together along a 27km-long tunnel with cataclysmic force and scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics. |
We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things Bihari LalFather | |
Bihari Lal said Chaya - the eldest of his six children - had been frightened after watching local TV reports that the experiment would cause the "Earth to crack up and everybody in the village would die". | |
"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail," he told reporters. | "We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail," he told reporters. |
Her uncle, Biram Singh, said Chaya, whose parents are labourers, had seen the reports at a neighbour's house. | |
The BBC's Faisal Mohammed in Bhopal says Chaya consumed insecticide some time on Tuesday, when her parents had gone to work. | |
She was taken to Shajapur government hospital where she told police before she died that she had been worried by the doomsday predictions. | |
Virendra Singh Yadav, the policeman who took her statement, told the BBC she said she had watched programmes suggesting the Big Bang experiment might cause a great earthquake and great holes. | |
"She said she could not bear to see the destruction of all that was dear to her and therefore thought it was better to end her life," he said. | |
Police have registered a case of death by poisoning and are investigating. | |
'Irresponsible' | |
Our correspondent says in recent days Indian channels have held discussions airing doomsday predictions which have made some people jittery. | |
Many people rushed to temples in various parts of the country on Tuesday fearing the "world's end" after watching the media coverage, reports say. | |
In a report published earlier this year, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said the collider presented "no conceivable danger". | |
Clinical psychologist Nadia Masand said some of the television coverage had been "irresponsible". | |
"These people are constantly airing series on black magic, blood-sucking vampires; even sensationalising a natural phenomenon such as an eclipse by saying that it means bad omen," she told the BBC. | |
"Now prophesising that the Big Bang would bring doomsday! Such programmes can have a disastrous effect on an emotionally weak person." |
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