Beijing: Three giant pandas, one of the world's most endangered species, are missing at a nature reserve near the epicenter of China's worst earthquake in decades in southwest region after the disaster struck, State Forestry Administration said.

Five staffers in the Wolong Nature Reserve were killed by the quake that also left all the panda houses severely damaged, an SFA spokesman said, citing the latest report from the China Wolong Giant Panda Protection Research Centre.

The 8 magnitude quake last Monday that has killed nearly 32,500 people so far, destroyed 14 of 32 panda houses and severely damaged the rest, it said.

"The first batch of bamboo, apples and veterinary medicine for the pandas, as well as goods and tents urgently needed by the staff arrived on Saturday night," the SFA spokesman Cao Qingyao said, according to official Xinhua news agency.

There are more than 1,590 pandas living in the wild in the quake-ravaged Sichuan province, as also in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces but their safety was still unknown, the agency said.

A day after the earthquake, authorities had said the Giant pandas were safe both at the Wolong Centre and at a research base in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

Officials had said that all the 86 pandas at Wolong and 60 in Chengdu were "all safe".

As the habitat of sex shy pandas is shrinking, China is building the world's largest panda breeding base in Sichuan as part of its efforts to increase their population. About 1,590 pandas are believed to be living in wilderness in China while 239 are in captivity.

The low birth rate among pandas and low survival rate of new born cubs are threatening the survival of China's icon. Scientists of China, the US, Canada and other countries have also joined hands to sequence the genome of the giant panda under a project that would help protect it.
Source : PTI