Thousands stranded as storms hit China quake area

BEIJING, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Continuous rain near the epicentre of China's May 12 earthquake has killed at least two people, left 30 missing and thousands stranded by mountain torrents, cave-ins and mudslides, state media said on Wednesday.

Downpours began to pound Beichuan county in Sichuan province, southwest China, on Monday night, collapsing more than 1,100 houses since then, Xinhua news agency said.

More than 300 people have been injured in the downpours.

At least 1,100 houses have collapsed and about 6,000 people were stranded or "in dire need of help", Xinhua said.

Beichuan was one of the hardest-hit counties in the Sichuan earthquake, which killed at least 80,000 people.

The rainstorms were separate to a typhoon which ploughed into a densely populated area of south China on Wednesday, triggering a "once-in-a-century storm tide" in several cities.

Earlier this month, a mudslide caused by the collapse of a mine waste reservoir killed more than 260 people in their village homes in northern China. (Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)