A fire at an internet cafe spread to a hotel on the upper floors of a building in central China, killing 13 people and injuring 50 others.

A Chinese city near the border with North Korea has held an air raid drill amid tensions over Pyongyang’s latest threats, according to media reports.

RESCUERS said yesterday there is little hope of finding alive 11 miners trapped underground after a gas explosion in a central Chinese coal mine that killed 26 of their comrades.

Cinemas closed and coal miners stopped work as China observed a day of mourning today for more than 1,200 victims of a mudslide a week earlier in a north-western town, while the race to protect survivors from more flooding continued.

China declared a national day of mourning for victims of a massive landslide in the remote northwest, as authorities today stressed the importance of hygiene and safety for the thousands now living in temporary shelters.

THIRTEEN vocational students were hurt in China yesterday – including one who had a hand chopped off – when they were attacked by youths with cleavers, after a string of violent school assaults.

At least five men armed with knives burst into the dormitory of a vocational college in China today and slashed nine students, one of them seriously, sparking new fears in a country on edge over a series of shocking rampages, many of them at schools.

A Chinese news agency has reported that an aftershock has killed one person and injured 260 others in Sichuan province.

The Chinese “thugs in blue” seen guarding the Olympic torch on its journey around the world will not be allowed to run alongside it in Australia.

LIVE rats are being trucked from central China, which is suffering a plague of a reported two billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes.

Bird flu has killed again in Indonesia and is picking up speed elsewhere in Asia, with fresh outbreaks in Vietnam and a new human case reported in China, officials said today.

The death toll from Tropical Storm Prapiroon rose to six in south China today as the storm weakened further into a tropical depression but continued to drench an area where 400,000 people had been evacuated.

Tropical Storm Prapiroon left five people dead in south China, official media reported today, as high winds and heavy rain lashed an area where 400,000 people had earlier been evacuated.

Rescuers in north-east China worked in sub-freezing temperatures today to search for three coal miners who were trapped after an explosion killed 146 others in a disaster that has highlighted the industry’s shortcomings despite repeated safety crackdowns.

Nearly 600,000 people were evacuated as Typhoon Talim ploughed into southern China today, packing winds of up to 114mph.

TYPHOON Matsa has weakened to a tropical storm as it has plowed north up China’s coast, but eastern provinces are still bracing for torrential rains and possible floods, domestic media said yesterday.

Rescuers in northeast China were working today to free 69 coal miners trapped in a flooded mine, the government said.

Eleven people who tried to defraud Chinese lottery winners by having their tickets declared forgeries were today sentenced to prison terms of up to 19 years, news reports said, following a scandal in which one disappointed winner threatened suicide.

Police have detained a man accused of slashing as many as nine boys to death as they slept in their high school dormitory in central China, state media reported today.

The Japanese government convened an emergency session today following a media report that a body believed to be Asian was discovered in Iraq. It was not known whether the body belonged to a Japanese man held hostage by militants who threatened to behead him.

China’s culture ministry has approved Britney Spears’ first tour of the country – but wants to know what the raunchy pop star is wearing before she hits the stage.

China today began offering free Aids tests to anyone who wants one and free treatment for infected people who cannot afford it, amid growing official urgency about stopping the spread of the virus.

AT least 32 people were killed, five missing and 116 injured as Typhoon Dujuan slammed into southern China, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

ONE of the most powerful typhoons in years ripped into southern China yesterday after killing at least 10 people in the Philippines and injuring dozens more.

A strong earthquake hit south-western China, killing at least nine people and causing hundreds of buildings to collapse, official media reported today.

FIVE people have died and more than 370,000 have been evacuated as huge holes were blown in dykes in east China to tackle flood waters that are at record highs, officials said yesterday.

A tropical storm killed three people in China as it swept through the province of Guangdong, wiping out 4,700 homes and causing more than £1bn damage.