School trips, local government-sponsored visits with sister cities and other international exchange programs with the United States and other countries are being called off or postponed due to heightened tensions in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in the U.S., according to a Kyodo News survey.

According to the poll, released on Thursday, 27 high school excursions and overseas exchange programs involving elementary, high school and university students were either canceled or diverted to different destinations due to the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 in New York and Washington.

Nineteen other programs postponed events indefinitely, while 20 said they were considering canceling or postponing plans.

Shoichi Naito, principal of a prefecture-run commercial high school in Shimane Prefecture, said, "If there is even a 1 percent risk of danger, there is no recourse but to give it up.

"The students want to go, but we cannot risk their precious lives for this trip," Naito said of the Australian trip that was to begin Tuesday.

In Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, 40 junior high school students were scheduled to go on home-stays in California, among other places, but this was also canceled after the hosts there relayed fears about accommodating the students amid tense and strict law-enforcement activities in their areas.

In the city of Miyazaki, a program to send 15 residents to Virginia Beach, Va. -- its sister city -- late next month was postponed until May.

An international exchange association based in Aomori Prefecture canceled a home-stay program for local residents in Maine, scheduled for December, after it assessed that planned upcoming events are "uncertain."

Also, a seminar to gather young Japanese local government personnel and their 15 Pakistani counterparts, scheduled from Sept. 28 in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, was canceled due to political instability in Pakistan.

Likewise, a citizens' group in Hiroshima Prefecture gave up plans to visit Pakistan to meet peace activists there.

Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan, faces possible U.S. retaliation for the attacks because it is believed to be harboring Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. has named as the prime suspect in the attacks.

Joto Elementary School and Kawada Elementary School in the city of Nagano have postponed a student visit to Delhi Public School, after the latter informed them of possible dangers, given a fairly large number of Muslims in the country.

Officials of these two schools said the decision was also in response to concerns among some of the students' parents, who are worried because of India's proximity to Afghanistan.

Joto Elementary School began its ties with Delhi Public School in an exchange initiative during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, while Kawada Elementary School began exchanges with it through an international goodwill group in Nagano. Ten students from the Indian school visited Japan in June.