About half the 2,125 reservoirs damaged by the massive earthquake in southwest China will be repaired this year, state media on Friday quoted a water resources official as saying.

The repairs to roughly 1,000 reservoirs and 378 kilometres (234 miles) of embankment will cost 5.5 billion dollars, Leng Gang, Sichuan province's water resources director said, according to the China Daily.

All of the reservoirs will be repaired by the end of 2010, Leng said.

The 8.0 magnitude quake that struck the province on May 12 last year left 87,000 people dead or missing, and prompted concerns that damage to dams on Sichuan's many strong rivers could pose serious flood risks.

China said shortly after the earthquake that it had left 69 dams in danger of bursting and caused "dangerous situations" at hundreds of others.

However, no major dam collapses have yet been reported.

Leng was also quoted as saying the repairs would help redress drinking water shortages experienced by five million people in the province.

He added that Sichuan planned to increase reservoir storage capacity by 4.5 billion cubic metres (159 billion cubic feet) by 2012, from the current 10.5 billion cubic metres.

This also would boost water available for irrigation in the province, an important agricultural region.

It was not clear whether this capacity increase was part of the repair project or a separate plan.

Some Chinese government officials and scientists have argued recently that a dam at Zipingpu in Sichuan may have triggered the quake as the weight of water behind it put pressure on a fault line.

However, other top Chinese experts have dismissed the theory.