China floods spread to north after at least 500 die

BEIJING (Reuters) - Water levels have risen to critical levels along vast Chinese rivers and floods have spread to the north while a tornado hammered 33 villages in the east and two central provinces suffered drought, media said on Thursday.

More than 500 people have been killed since the summer floods started, but the disaster has failed to gain world attention surrounding floods in England in which three deaths have been reported.

Four people died in the normally arid northwestern province of Gansu and the neighboring frontier region of Xinjiang this week, Xinhua news agency said.

Two farmers in Xinjiang's Huocheng county were swept away by flood water triggered by heavy rain that started on Tuesday, Xinhua said.

"At least 48 herdsmen and 13,000 goats have been stranded for nearly two days in a mountainous area in northwestern Xinjiang after a landslide cut off their path," it said.

On Wednesday, a tornado swept across a 10 km (six miles) path through 33 villages in Yinshang county in the dirt-poor eastern province of Anhui.

The villages were the among worst hit in weeks of serious flooding along the swollen Huai River which had displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, Xinhua said.

"It is like adding frost to the snow," it said.

State television showed pictures of uprooted trees, downed electricity poles and houses without roofs by the tornado.