China's web users select grassroots heroes

BEIJING - China's Internet users have selected 10 individuals and groups as grassroots heroes, or China's "Good Samaritans," for the second quarter 2013.

The winners' list was unveiled Saturday following a two-week-long vote by tens of thousands of web users, according to an announcement made on Sunday by Xinhua News Agency, the online event's founder and sponsor since 2010.

They include Liao Zhi, a dancer in her 20s who lost both legs to the fatal Sichuan earthquake in May 2008 but never gave it up.

Braving difficulties, she continues to dance and excel with prosthetic legs. She chose to be a volunteer in the field when another deadly quake hit the same province in April this year.

Ma Zhimin, a retired female judge at a Beijing court, who has been raising a convict's abandoned son for the past 19 years, treating him as her own child.

Also among the winners is Li Shu, a mother of triplets and a patient who is struggling with cancer. On China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, her daily notes of three daughters' growth and her personal eagerness for recovery moved thousands of web users.

Between July 1 and 20, the public were asked to vote online for their favorites from a shortlist of 20 nominees. The winner's list will be publicized on Xinhua's webisite: http://www.news.cn

The Internet has become a major channel for people to make themselves heard in China, which is now home to more than 500 million web users.