After train crash, China's Net users made themselves heard in a new way, Yu Ran reports in Shanghai.

At 8:47 pm on July 23, a message posted on Sina Weibo began receiving a lot of attention: "Our train bumped into something. Our carriage has fallen onto its side. Children are screaming... Come help us please! Come fast!"

The words, tweeted by a university sophomore writing under the name Yangjuan Quanyang on high-speed train D301, were a cry for help. But they also initiated a wave of unprecedented "citizen journalism" on China's Twitter-like micro blogs.

The train she was on had just crashed into bullet train D3115 outside Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. Of Yangjuan Quanyang's fellow passengers, 40 were killed and more than 190 injured. She survived.

In 10 hours, Yangjuan's plea was reposted 100,000 times. In the following week, there were 10 million messages about the crash on Sina Weibo and 20 million on QQ Weibo, another major Chinese micro blog.

Micro-bloggers demonstrated unfamiliar power: They broke the news, joined the rescue team, helped survivors and families of victims, and monitored the authorities who were investigating the accident.

Comments were highly emotional early on, and rumors abounded. But then observers communicating through micro blogs calmed, and assumed the mantle of the fourth estate and its role of monitoring the holders of power.

In this way, sociologists say, micro blogs provided a platform for Chinese to develop a mature citizenship, which is a prerequisite for the country to steer toward a civil society.

A multi-use tool

When the train crash happened, micro blogs delivered the news quickly. It was the medium of choice for passengers on the train, witnesses to the crash and even reporters from traditional news outlets.

Wu Zhiyong, a senior journalist at Wenzhou City News, was among the first news people to arrive at the scene of the accident. Using a mobile phone, he posted photos and wrote about the rescue on his personal micro blog.

"As a journalist, I have the responsibility to spread the true side of the news to the public immediately, and micro-blogging is the most convenient method for me," he said.

Within four minutes of  Yangjuan Quanyang's post, staff at Sina Weibo set up a page devoted to the train crash with related information, including search notices for missing passengers, updates on the number of dead and conditions of the injured.

"We have a 24-hour working team for the micro blog," Mao Taotao, a public relations manager at Sina, said. "The names of injured passengers sent to hospitals were updated regularly, which was much faster than the figures released by the authorized news agency and the local government."

Micro blogs were also effective in helping the injured. As hospitals admitted their first injured passengers, bloggers began posting messages calling for blood donations.

More than 1,000 people rushed to the blood donation center in Wenzhou after midnight. A Net user's photo of a crowd of people waiting to donate was widely circulated, prompting more people to help.

"I've never felt so proud of being a Wenzhou resident," Chen Zhao, a businessman who volunteered at the blood center, posted.

"We are all united as we do our best to help the injured and victims of the accident as fast as we can."

The government also used micro blogs to respond: 24 hours after the crash, the Zhejiang Provincial Health Department tweeted that the blood supply in Wenzhou had reached sufficient levels to help the injured.

Bloggers also helped relatives and friends find information about train passengers, and collected donations for the victims' families.

Chen Lihao, a businessman in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong province, promised to donate 1 yuan (16 cents) to Xiang Weiyi, a 2-year-old who was the last passenger rescued, every time his message praying for her was reposted.

His message was tweeted 900,000 times on July 27, and Chen wired 1 million yuan ($155,300) to the girl's family.

Bloggers also kept their eyes on the authorities. They checked efforts to rescue passengers from the trains, and questioned whether the work ended too soon. They monitored those investigating the cause of the accident, and wondered in their tweets whether railway authorities were hiding evidence.

Public opinion

"The attention given the train crash is unprecedented because every citizen is an interested party in a country where trains dominate long-distance transportation," said Gu Xiaoming, a sociology professor at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Like traditional news media, he said, "micro blogs serve to spur discussion on public events. But unlike traditional media, anyone can take a photo, record a video clip and write a quick note about a current event."

Regarding the train crash, Gu said "millions of 'citizen journalists' agreed with each other about the need to help victims and search for the truth behind the crash. Thus, they combined to lead public opinion."

However, a lot of information spread in micro blogs turned out to be rumor. One said a Japanese television host smiled while reporting the story. Another said only reporters wearing certain caps were allowed to raise questions during Premier Wen Jiabao's news conference at the crash site on July 28.

But these rumors died fast. "When there is a conflict of information, the true information and reasonable points of view are more persuasive and more easily accepted by the public," Gu said.

"The Internet, along with the public opinion that comes from it, has the ability to 'clean itself,'" said Zhu Chunyang, a journalism professor at Fudan University.

"Rumors, which often come with strong emotions on micro blogs, seem to have a negative effect on social stability, but they actually show the desire of the public to know the truth concerning everybody's daily life," he said.

"To fight rumors on micro blogs, the government had better make the right decisions and its responses must be transparent and timely. In this way, micro-blogging as a platform not only trains the public in expressing its opinion but also trains the government to acknowledge the opinion."

Xu Junqian contributed to this report.

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