Asian TV news channels last night switched to rolling coverage of the tragic death of pop legend Michael Jackson.

The singer was rushed to hospital yesterday in Los Angeles, but according to reports he died of a heart attack.

NDTV 24x7 and STAR News switched to breaking news using pictures from foreign news channels. The latter relied on pictures from sister station FOX News, whilst Aaj Tak also dedicated programming to his death.

MATV will be televising a special live show with Harjhap Bhangal at 19:30 tonight.

ZEE TV will screen a special 'ZEE Multiplex' at 20:30 from ZEE News India.

News of Jackson's death caused an avalanche of online traffic as millions of people turned to the web to find out the latest news about the singer's health.

TMZ, the popular celebrity gossip website, broke the story after a tip-off that a paramedic had visited the singer's home.

The volume of traffic temporarily took down TMZ, causing many interested surfers to try visiting other gossip blogs for updates - however, the sheer number of visitors then caused other sites to crash.

Search engine Google was unavailable to some users for over half an hour due to the weight of traffic.