Smithsonian National Zoo has now organized a relief fund to help the Wolong Center for Giant Pandas. Both adult pandas at the National Zoo, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are from Wolong. The San Diego Zoo had set up their relief fund last week.
Pandas International who had sent supplies to the area just got word through a satellite phone, that the needed items they shipped finally arrived. The supplies had to be moved from Chengdu to Wolong. The trek involved truck drivers navigating for 16 hours over damaged dirt roads, constantly maneuvering around rock slides, huge boulders non existent road shoulders with sheer drops to the narrow valley's below.
The news from China is not getting any better. The after shocks that keep reoccurring are keeping food, medical and other supplies from getting to areas that desperately need them, along with rain, causing mud slides.
Last word from Wolong is that they are going to have to relocate the Wolong base to another area. No details have come from this statement as to where they will move to or when they plan on doing this. They realized with the extensive damage that has taken place, any rebuilding at that location would be senseless because of their proximity of approximately 20 miles from the fault where the 8.0 earthquake originated.
