Chinese reserve workers mourn panda killed in quake aftermath

The world famous panda center had been badly damaged by the May 12 quake but officials had initially thought all 64 pandas had survived. Then they discovered two were missing.

Nine-year-old Mao Mao, the mother of five at the breeding centre, was discovered on Monday - she had been crushed by a wall of her enclosure after the river behind it swelled with landslide debris.

In mourning: Chinese panda keepers carry panda Mao Mao's body on their way to burial site near China Conservative and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong

This morning, panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and wheeled her quietly to a patch of ground outside the breeding center where a freshly dug hole waited.

"Slowly, slowly," they said, as they gently set it into the ground.

The centre's director, Zhang Hemin, stood with his cap in hand and then shoveled in a few spades of dirt. Mao Mao's keeper, He Changgui, stepped forward, crying, and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave.

There were three minutes of silence.

As the others left, the director of the U.S.-based Pandas International, Suzanne Braden, who had arrived the day before to survey the quake damage, put her arm around He.

Victim: Mao Mao was rescued after the May 12 earthquake, but died after a wall of her enclosure collapsed

Grief-stricken: He Changgui, the Chinese panda keeper who had been taking care of Mao Mao, mourns for the animal at its graveside

"You must look after her babies, OK?" she said. "And their babies."

He nodded. "I will go back to see her every day," he said.

Forty-seven pandas continue to live at Wolong, while one other panda, Xiao Xiao, has been missing since the quake.

The endangered panda is revered as a kind of national mascot in China. About 1,590 pandas live in the wild, mostly in Sichuan and the neighboring province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.

The nature reserve was heavily damaged by the quake, which was centered just 20 miles away in the heart of Sichuan province's mountainous panda country. Nearly 70,000 people were killed, and more than 5 million were left homeless.

Some of Wolong's pandas have been moved to another breeding center in Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, and eight were flown to Beijing for a previously scheduled six-month stay at the Beijing Zoo for the Olympics.

Pandas at play: Reserve staff are determined to look after the remaining animals

Zhang has said he is considering moving the reserve away from Wolong, which lies in a damp, narrow valley several hours' drive from Chengdu.

Five Wolong staff members were killed in the quake.

With the funeral finished, the centre turned quiet. Braden distributed donations of a panda stretcher, baby bottles, syringes and drugs.

He, Mao Mao's keeper, returned from the grave with red eyes. He had been the panda's only keeper since she was the age of 3. He would speak to her in the local Sichuan dialect as he worked.

"It's like you could say something and she would understand," he said. "If you were happy, she was happy too."