Rapture evangelist in hospital after stroke

Evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping, who rallied thousands of followers with a prophecy that the world would end last month, has been hospitalised after suffering a stroke, a spokesman said yesterday.

Mr Camping, 89, fell ill after a broadcast of his daily Open Forum radio show last Thursday in Oakland, California, and was admitted to a hospital in the San Francisco Bay area, said Tom Evans, a spokesman for his Family Radio network.

"He's doing well and that's all we want to say right now," Mr Evans said.

Mr Camping drew international attention by predicting the biblical Judgment Day would happen on 21 May, launching a doomsday countdown in which some followers spent their savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven that day.

After the prophecy failed to materialise, Mr Camping said he had simply miscalculated by five months and pronounced a new date for the apocalypse - 21 October.