Chinese netizens also launched a campaign to seek surviving fellow bloggers online. On May 25, a blog post at sina.com by Yang Di in Wenchuan County touched the hearts of many. "Thanks to everyone for the concern about me and I am alive," he wrote. The simple message received more than 13,000 replies from people sending Yang their blessings.

Because of the high view rate, the blog space of popular bloggers became information stations. In the blog space of a well- known blogger named Xiao Jing Zi at sina.com, a message from the quake-hit area caught the attention of mainstream media. It said that a neighborhood in Dujiangyan City, one of the worst-hit areas, had been missed by governmental or social assistance because of its remoteness. Thanks to this note, water, food and other disaster-relief aid finally arrived at the area.

Blogs have also been a channel for people to reflect various problems in the quake's aftermath. A blogger, with Wu Meng Liu Lang Zhe as his blog name at sina.com, suggested that the government needed to organize the psychological medical teams more effectively in terms of communication and coordination.

The blogger said in one of his blogs that he is a teacher in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and went to Mianyang, another city that was badly affected by the quake, to be a volunteer. He worked as a teacher in a tent school there. He mentioned a case of a girl in his tent school who once received three psychological sessions in half a day, which the girl's mother said had made her more tired and distraught.

An important media supplement

According to sina.com, up to May 17 blogs dealing with the quake uploaded to the website totaled 2 million, and the page view of these blogs on the website increased by 20 percent.

"The number of blogs uploaded to our website kept rising after that," said Li Lu, a staff member of sina's PR department.

Li said that the contents of these quake-related blogs cover a wide range, such as first-hand experiences during the quake, volunteers' information, suggestions on reconstruction of the quake-hit area and mourning for the victims.

After years of development in China, blogs have finally shown their power as a grassroots media outlet of netizens, especially after May 12, said Peng Bo, Deputy Director of the Internet Bureau of the Information Office under the State Council of China, at a convention on the development of new media held in Beijing on May 20.