Tue, May 13 09:18 AM
BEIJING (AP) _ The 60 rare giant pandas at a breeding facility near the epicenter of a devastating earthquake are safe, a Chinese government news agency said Tuesday. The pandas live at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Monday's magnitude 7.9 quake shook buildings in the city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and knocked out power and phone service. Pandas are among the world's rarest animals.
The breeding center is part of efforts to help ensure the survival of the species by breeding them to be released into the wild. There was no immediate word on the status of pandas at the Wolong Nature Reserve, a larger breeding center outside Chengdu that has about 280 pandas, according to Xinhua.
It said earlier the quake cut off communications with that facility. About 1,600 pandas live in the wild in China's mountainous west and another 180 live in captivity.
The earthquake killed about 10,000 people. ___ On the Net: Giant Panda Breeding Research Base: http://www.
panda.org.
cn/english/index.htm.
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