BEIJING - In handling emergencies like protests or extreme weather, local Chinese governments are increasingly turning to microblogs to offer information and answer queries from the public.

The number of government microblog accounts registered at Sina Weibo, a major Twitter-like service in China, had reached 50,947 by the end of September, an increase of more than 6,000 compared with three months ago, according to a Sina Weibo report released on Monday.

Eastern Jiangsu province has 5,432 government microblog accounts, the most among Chinese provinces, followed by Henan, Guangdong and the capital Beijing, showed the report.

China's government microblogs have entered a stage of stable development and effective operation and become a priority channel for authorities to communicate with people in case of emergencies, it concluded.

Whether as a platform to exchange ideas or discover information, microblogs are increasingly popular among Chinese, especially middle-class and young people.

In the latest protests against a chemical project in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, the Ningbo city government used its microblog to inform the public of its decision to forbid any paraxylene project and suspend preparatory work for an oil refining project.

This piece of information soon got more than 90,000 hits and nearly 30,000 comments from netizens.

"I pay close attention to the reactions of government microblog accounts in their handling of emergencies," Shanghai resident Ma Chao told Xinhua. "When rumors spread on the Internet, I hope to hear the authority's voice as early as possible and then make my own judgement.

"On most occasions, government microblogs provide credible responses to rumors. But some government microblogs lag behind, offering outdated,simple and superficial information."

The bureaucratic tone of some government microblogs leads to people finding them boring, Ma added.

China has more than 500 million Internet users and over 300 million of them use social media such as microblogs, where they can express their complaints or show support for topics of common interest. Official administrations at various levels have registered nearly 80,000 microblog accounts.

Last month, Wang Chen, head of the State Internet Information Office, called on officials to make social media a focus of online publicity, guidance and management, and make it play a "greater and more positive role" in serving the country's overall work.

"Government microblogs are just the forefront of governments, whose inner mechanisms of solving problems are more important and will stand the test of emergencies," said Zhang Zhi'an, a communications analyst at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.

The credibility and influence of government microblogs is key to effective interactions between the government and people, he said.

Fu Cheng, a researcher with the Jilin Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua that the development of government microblogs showed efforts by government to promote transparency in their affairs.

But the authorities at various levels need to improve their microblog service with more timely and immediate interactions with people, added Fu.