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Survivors pulled from the rubble of the China earthquake have begun describing their dreadful ordeal and the other voices are also emerging on the Internet. Many are searching desperately for relatives and friends, hoping someone else on the message boards has news of them. Others trapped in the earthquake zone are appealing for help via their mobile phones.

Once the images would have been censored in the information holdback, but today Chinese are watching this horrifying story unfold. Many bypassing government sources are turning to the Internet communities for answers and for action.

One says, Mum, are you ok? After the earthquake I have not been able to get in touch with you by phone. It's May 13, your phone seems to work, but no one answers. I don't know whether you're ok. I'm really concerned about you.

Another posts an image of his relative's car in an effort to track him down. Later adding his thanks, saying he's been in contact.

A soldier awaiting orders to join the rescue effort in Wenchuan says his pregnant wife has told him she's starving, without food or water, in Jiangyou. "Why doesn't the television report the situation in Jiangyou? I'm willing to devote all of my energy to save the people from my hometown. But there's nobody to save my wife. Please, everyone. Her name is Wang Zhou. She's a teacher. Please help, everyone."

Another has heard of a group of minors, safe, but again without food in Qingpin. They could die if they have to wait too long. Please help to spread this message to let everybody know because this message could save the lives of a thousand people.

And there are messages direct from the disaster zone. One man trapped near Wenchuan lists all the landmarks he's passed in a text message to a friend to help rescuers find him. These places haven't got any signs. But there are so many people waiting to be rescued. Please forward this message for me so people can send a rescue team to us. Please, quick!

So are the messages from the Internet. We're joined now by Doctor Yi Lu from Nottingham University's China Policy Institute. Yi Lu, what is without precedent, despite the horribleness, is that we are seeing more of something happening in China that we've ever seen in history?

Yes, I think so far Chinese people are generally happy with the Chinese government's response. People feel that the government responded to this major disaster very swiftly and they mobilized a large resources and also people feel that this time the medium has been very open in reporting all aspects of the disaster.

Yeah, there was some sort of new act that came in that I think May 1, demanding more transparency, perhaps to coincide with the Olympics. Has that played a part?

I think that has definitely played a part. This new regulation which became effective on May 1, basically it's about government transparency and government has the obligation to disclose the information. So people see this as really a test to see how well the government is going to implement this new regulation. In fact in commentaries in Chinese media, many people are all sublinking this media coverage to the regulation and saying they seem to be doing well so far.

To what extent are their questions beginning to come for around China about how well the cities were built?

I was watching sort of Chinese media coverage and reading article online just earlier. And I saw people have already raised these issues, for example, we know that some school buildings collapsed and many children who were in class at that time were trapped underneath. So I saw an article sort of questioning whether the government buildings, maybe they're of higher quality. So if that's a case, then that'll tell you something.

Well that in itself is quite extraordinary, isn't it?  That's sort of criticism should already be surfacing?

Yes, although I think at the moment the mainstream voice is still of supporting the efforts to help the victims and also praising the government effort in general. You also hear some of these voices questioning, er, you know, whether, for example beforehand whether they could have done better in terms of forecasting this disaster and also as I said raising this issue of building quality. So I think at the moment also the voices do get heard.

Doctor Lu, thank you very much indeed for joining us from Nottingham University.