WUHAN, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- University campuses in Wuhan, once hit hard by COVID-19, have restored bustle as students are coming back to the city from various places across the country.

More than 1 million college students on campuses in the capital city of central China's Hubei Province had to stay at home for online studies when schools were all closed due to the coronavirus outbreak earlier this year.

For many students back to campus, the first thing to do upon returning was to air their quilts and clothes, hoping the ultraviolet rays of sunlight will kill the mold or bacteria on their bedding.

On Guizi Hill, in which the picturesque campus of the Wuhan-based Central China Normal University (CCNU) is nestled, quilts, mattress pads and bedsheets of all colors and patterns could be seen everywhere.

Clotheslines outside the dorm buildings, horizontal roadside railings, and flowering shrubs around the sports field in another CCNU campus were all used by students to sunbathe their bedclothes.

After the long stay at home, Zhang Yixin, a sophomore at CCNU, said she still felt like a freshman. After returning to school, Zhang could not help talking with her roommates for a long while.

"We haven't seen each other for more than half a year, and everyone has plenty to share," she said.

When such preparations for the new semester were completed, many hardworking students began to devote themselves to study, hoping to make up for the lost time.

At Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhang Junyi, a student majoring in mechanical engineering, sat on a tractor to practice driving and parking, while Huang Yan, an agricultural engineering sophomore, spent most of the day in a workshop conducting welding operations skillfully with her classmates.

Universities in Hubei require students to return to campus across staggered dates, by stages, and in groups, to avoid mass gatherings.