China quake kills 47 people in panda reserves

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's most devastating earthquake in decades has killed 47 people around its largest panda breeding centre in the southwest, where two of the animals remain missing, a government website said on Wednesday.

Thirty-five others at the Wolong Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda were seriously injured and 66 unaccounted for after the 7.9-magnitude quake last week, the State Forestry Administration said.

The centre is located in Wenchuan county, the quake's epicenter, in Sichuan province. Surrounded by bamboo-growing nature reserves for wild pandas, it is home to some 130 pandas raised in captivity, or more than half of the world's total.

"Telecommunication, transport and power in the reserves were completely severed," the forestry administration said in a report on its website (http://www.forestry.gov.cn).

"The dens were damaged because of multiple huge landslides near the centre," the report said.

Of the six pandas that went missing after the quake, workers had braved dangers to find three in the wilderness and rescued another from the debris, it said.

The government said on Wednesday that more than 41,000 people, mostly in Sichuan, had been confirmed dead and some 33,000 remained missing.

Hundreds of people, including over 30 foreign tourists, were stranded in Wolong for days after the quake, Chinese media said.

The giant panda is one of the most endangered species in the world and is found only in China. It has become an international wildlife symbol and an icon for the Olympic games to be held in Beijing in August.