BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The worst-hit areas in a devastating earthquake five years ago in southwest China have been restored, according to airborne remote sensing images from a Beijing institute on Saturday.
The images show that the townships of Wenchuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province have been rebuilt, said a report from the Beijing-based Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has monitored the quake zone environment through remote sensing images since 2008.
The 8.0-magnitude quake happened on May 12, 2008 and the death toll is estimated to have exceeded 80,000. The epicenter was Wenchuan.
Infrastructure such as schools, roads and watercourses have been restored, the report said.
Plantation has gradually recovered in mountainous areas seriously shaken by the earthquake, the report said.
Although landslides have happened occasionaly since 2008, their intensity has reduced each year, it said.
A total of 36 lakes were formed in the areas after the quake and pose no threat to the local environment. In the last five years no new lakes have been formed and existing ones are at a safe level, the report said.
However, in the worst-hit areas only 20 percent of farmland damaged by quake-caused landslides have been reclaimed, it said.
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