A two-headed pig has been saved from the abattoir in China.

A van carrying 15 nursery students plunged into a roadside pond in a rural area of eastern China today, killing 11 children, state media and an official said.

FLOODS after days of driving rain have killed at least 39 people in northeastern Brazil, and left 1,000 unaccounted for and another 100,000 people homeless, authorities said.

Chinese state media said a man stabbed eight people to death including his mother, wife and daughter.

At least 16 people were killed and more than 320,000 evacuated from their homes in southern and central China after heavy rains toppled houses, flooded roads and damaged a dam.

Authorities have moved more than 300,000 people from their homes in southern China after heavy rain toppled houses, flooded roads and damaged a dam, Chinese state media said today.

An overloaded fishing boat sank in an eastern Chinese river, killing 15.

HEAVY rains in southern and eastern China have left at least 62 people dead or missing, while more than one million residents have been evacuated.

China’s death toll from Typhoon Saomai rose to at least 214 today after a hard-hit province announced it had confirmed 80 more fatalities.

China’s death toll from Typhoon Saomai rose to 114 today as authorities said some victims were evacuees who died when buildings used as shelters collapsed in the strongest storm to hit China in more than five decades.

South-east China braced for more torrential rain today after Typhoon Saomai slammed into the region, killing 105 people and leaving another 190 missing.

China’s death toll from Typhoon Saomai rose to at least 104 today, with another 190 missing, as the most powerful storm to strike the country in five decades weakened into a tropical depression.

China’s death toll from Tropical Storm Prapiroon has jumped to 48, with 15 more people missing, after the storm knocked down houses and set off landslides and flash floods, news reports said.

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.

Typhoon Prapiroon roared towards southern China today packing winds of up to 80 mph.

Torrential rains in central and eastern China have killed 21 people and destroyed thousands of houses, the government said today.

A 35-year-old Chinese woman who handled sick and dying chickens has died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, becoming the mainland’s sixth human fatality, the government and the World Health Organisation said today.

The deaths of two more people in China and two in Turkey have brought the global toll from bird flu to 78, the World Health Organisation said today as it urged stepped-up preparation in case the illness turns into a pandemic strain.

World Health Organisation officials say they are trying to determine why the bird flu outbreak in Turkey has spread so quickly among humans, especially children.

A MAN died of bird flu in one of the affluent neighbourhoods of Indonesia’s capital, while a self-employed vendor in a remote Chinese village was sickened by the disease, authorities said yesterday.

A man died of bird flu in one of the glitziest neighbourhoods of Indonesia’s capital, while a self-employed vendor in a remote Chinese village was sickened by the disease, authorities said today.

Thousands of students rioted at a college in southern China to protest against fees and other campus issues, a Hong Kong newspaper reported today.

A BUS in southern China carrying a group celebrating International Women’s Day ran off a cliff yesterday, killing at least 22 people and injuring 22 others.

A bus in southern China carrying a group celebrating International Women’s Day ran off a cliff today, killing at least 22 people and injuring 22 others.

A gas explosion in a coal mine in southern China today killed 48 workers and injured two others.

Thirteen passengers on a Chinese jet were taken to hospital suffering lung and ear damage after the plane lost cabin pressure at 25,000 feet and made an emergency landing.

Thirteen people have been killed in an explosion at an illegal fireworks factory in northwest China, a local government official said today.

Authorities downstream on the Yangtze River braced themselves for high water racing towards them today as the city of Wuhan escaped flooding.

Sixteen workers at a Chinese coal mine have died after a gas explosion ripped through the facility while they were making safety improvements to the shaft and ventilation system.

Accidents blamed on natural gas leaks have killed at least 50 miners in three separate Chinese mines.

A landslide at a quarry in southern China has killed at least 15 people.

A blast at a storage site for explosives has killed 41 people and injured 89 in north west China.

Thirteen children, the oldest just four years old, have died in a fire at a kindergarten dormitory in China.

Children as young as eight are thought to have been making fireworks when their school exploded in south- east China.

Rescuers are combing through the wreckage of a school in China for clues to the cause of an explosion that killed 41 people, some of them children.