13Sep LHC Suicide by Indian Girl

Image by Traskas via Flickr

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’

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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7609631.stm