A deadly high-speed rail crash has shaken public trust in China's government and underscored the growing difficulty of controlling information, with nearly half a billion Chinese now online.

The tragedy sparked an outpouring of public fury on China's hugely popular social networking sites, where thousands demanded to know why more care had not been taken over safety on the flagship high-speed rail network.

At the heart of the anger was the perception -- fuelled by dozens of earlier scandals, from trains to tainted milk -- that the government has failed to safeguard its people in its rush to develop.

China's strictly controlled media initially responded with extraordinarily critical coverage, with even the People's Daily -- the Communist Party mouthpiece -- saying the country did not need "blood-soaked GDP".

Within a week, Beijing's infamous propaganda department had intervened to shut down the criticism, but the damage to the government's image had been done.

"They think: 'We're building you all this stuff... Why aren't you grateful? What's with all the questions?'" read a now-deleted blog posting by the writer Han Han, the voice of China's youth.

China has used infrastructure projects as an engine for driving growth, and the development of the world's largest high-speed rail network was a key political goal.

But the project was highly controversial even before the accident on July 23, which killed 40 people and injured another 191.

A heavily promoted new bullet train service between Beijing and Shanghai launched in June amid much fanfare has been plagued by technical glitches and power cuts, with less than a third of seats sold on some services.

The railway ministry was also under a cloud for a corruption scandal that saw the removal of its head earlier this year and breakdowns on the Beijing-Shanghai route.

The government has responded with both a soft and hard approach, making apologies and pledges to improve safety, while at the same time cracking down on independent media coverage.

China -- which has the world's largest online population with 485 million users -- constantly strives to exert its control over the Internet, blocking content it deems politically sensitive as part of a vast censorship system.

But the rise of China's weibos -- microblogs similar to Twitter -- has exposed the difficulty of controlling access to information.

A microblogger living near the accident site in the eastern city of Wenzhou is widely believed to have broken the news of the crash, while millions of others kept up a steady barrage of criticism in the days that followed.

"We are experiencing a new microblogging revolution," said media professor Zhan Jiang of Beijing Foreign Studies University.

"When microblogging can transmit information faster than traditional media, society will become more transparent."

After the accident, government missteps included a rapid shift from search and rescue to clearing the scene -- even as far as the partial burying of one of the carriages the day after the crash.

Video footage posted online that appeared to show bodies falling from a carriage as it was being lifted into a ditch prompted a huge public outcry.

Railway ministry spokesman Wang Yongpin said the move aided the rescue, adding, in a line that has become famous after being reposted countless times on the Internet, "as to whether you believe it or not, in any case, I believe it".

This week, Railway Minister Sheng Guangzu said the government had been taught "a bloody lesson that railway safety concerns safety of the lives and property of the masses of the people."

Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst and professor, said the accident may provide backing for reformist elements within the government to attempt change.

"The conservatives are going to have a more difficult time justifying tightening and control. The question is, as with other things, does the moment pass?" he said

"It may not be a turning point. But it presents the leadership with a clear example of how hardline policies don't solve certain problems in the system."

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