China's State Forestry Administration, which oversees Wolong and most of China's nature reserves, has also verified the animals' absence to media.
The agency has already begun efforts to locate the pandas, according to the WWF statement.
More than a dozen cubs were also rescued from the breeding center Tuesday by Wolong staff, just hours after heavy landslides piled on top of the main entrance. (Watch video.)
Employees were forced to climb a wooden ladder out of the reserve to a bridge, gripping the cubs in their arms, according to Brody.
The babies were then taken by car to the largest village in the area, Shawan, 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) from the breeding center.
(Read: "Pandas Sensed China Quake Coming?" [May 15, 2008].)
Tragic Losses
Xinhua also reported Monday that five staff members of the Wolong reserve died in the earthquake, the worst to hit China in three decades.
National Geographic News reported May 13 that 19 people in the Wolong reserve had died.
USCEF's Brody clarified on Monday that 5 of those 19 deaths were people associated with the Wolong reserve—but were not staff members as reported by Xinhua.
Four of the casualties were local residents employed as temporary workers for the reserve, including one person who was killed by a falling rock while working at the panda center. The Wolong Police Station's deputy director also died when he was struck by a spinning helicopter blade during an evacuation, Brody said.
Some of the heaviest devastation and human loss of life has occurred in the rugged territory near Wolong, at the edges of the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary, he added.
"The loss of any life in China is tragic, and the magnitude of casualties is overwhelming," he said.
"Thankfully, the caretakers of the pandas were spared."
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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