Pandas Safe After Chinese Quake, Officials Say

National Geographic News

Updated May 13, 2008

The world's most famous giant pandas are safe more than a day after a devastating earthquake isolated the remote, mountainous area from the rest of the world, China's State Forestry Administration has confirmed.

Officials made radio contact with Wolong National Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, the only place where the rare animals can be seen in such large numbers.

The baby giant pandas have been relocated to another settlement 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) upstream from the panda center, according to Marc Brody, president of the U.S.-China Environmental Fund. Eighty-six adult pandas have also been confirmed safe. However, 19 local people in the area may have died when their stone houses collapsed.

Chinese officials and zoo officials overseas were worried about the center's hundred or so pandas, whose home is close to the heart of Monday's massive earthquake in central Sichuan province.

(See photos of the quake's destruction.)

The Wolong area is without electricity and phone communications, though satellite phones are now operational for rescue operations in the nearby cities of Yingxou and Wenchuan, Brody told National Geographic News.

According to Brody, who has worked at Wolong for the past seven years, government reports have stated that a new paratrooper operation is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

A heavy rain was reported in the area for the second night following the earthquake, Brody added.

"The fact that Wolong remains completely isolated a day and a half later in this age of modern technology highlights the severe topography and difficult accessibility of this area," he said.

The magnitude 7.9 quake toppled buildings, schools, and chemical plants Monday, killing about 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel, and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades.

Peace Symbol

Pandas are a distinct symbol of China and the loans of the animals to other countries as peace offerings has been described as "panda politics."

Their rarity and slow breeding make any large-scale loss critical to the population.

"The wild pandas, they can sense things. I'm sure they moved to higher terrain. But captive pandas do not have that luxury. They do not have the skills to survive in the wild," said Suzanne Braden, director of U.S.-based Pandas International, which supports Wolong with medical equipment.

More than 60 pandas at another breeding center in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu are safe, said an official there who gave his family name as Fei. The center even opened to tourists Tuesday, he said.

Thirty-one British tourists panda-watching in Wolong and initially reported missing were safe and in the provincial capital of Chengdu Tuesday night, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Another group of 12 Americans who were on a panda-watching tour sponsored by the conservation group WWF also remained out of contact Tuesday, said Tan Rui, WWF communications officer in China.

Kerry Zobor, a spokesperson for WWF, told National Geographic News that the organization has been in touch with the American tourists' families.

"We have also been in touch with the U.S. State Department and authorities in China," Zobor said. "We are working diligently to get info but at this point, we haven't had communication with the group yet."

Magical Place

The Wolong center is deep in the hills north of Chengdu along a winding, two-lane road—recently upgraded—that reports say has been wiped out in places.

Rescue workers were only able to reach nearby areas of the remote region by foot on Tuesday. (See pictures of the Wolong pandas.)

Wolong reserve has a population of 5,000 people, there are two townships of about 2,000 each are Genda and Wolong township, Brody said.

Both the Wolong and Chengdu centers are part of efforts to breed giant pandas in hopes of increasing the endangered species' chances of survival. About 1,600 pandas live in the wild in China's mountainous west and another 180 live in captivity.

"It's magical. It's a beautiful place," Braden said. "It's high, clean, pure, where you'd like to think that wild pandas would be."

Zoos in Scotland, Washington, and San Diego were also trying to make contact. Officials at the Edinburgh Zoo visited Wolong a couple of weeks ago to agree to the loan of two pandas and they were very concerned, said zoo spokeswoman Maxine Finlay.

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The Associated Press and Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News contributed to this report