Beijing: One of the three giant pandas that went missing after a massive earthquake hit southwest China today returned to a breeding centre close to the epicentre but the two others were yet to be traced.
"The two missing are very likely to be alive though aftershocks could almost be felt every few hours in the mountainous area," 30 kms from the epicentre of the 8 magnitude quake of May 12, an official of the provincial forestry bureau said.
The staff of the China Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Centre, where more than 60 pandas were being raised, have launched a search for the missing ones, Xiong Beirong was quoted as saying by official Xinhua news agency.
Pandas are among the most endangered animals in the world. "Both the pandas are adults and they are more capable to escape from dangers than the younger ones," he said.
Two pandas were injured when their cells collapsed in the quake, while six others disappeared from the Wolong centre but four came back safely over the last few days.
Five staffers in the Wolong Nature Reserve were killed by the quake that also left all the panda houses severely damaged. The quake in which the confirmed death toll crossed 40,000 today, has destroyed 14 of 32 panda houses and severely damaged the rest.
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 yesterday.
