Nineteen Britons on a panda-watching eco-tour in China's Sichuan province have been missing since yesterday's massive earthquake, their tour operator said today.

The Dorking-based Kuoni Travel said that the group were travelling in a coach from Chengdu, the provincial capital, to the Wolong nature reserve when the 7.9-magnitude quake – China's worst for 30 years – hit yesterday afternoon.

"All lines of communication to the region are down and as such no further information is known at this time," the company said in a statement.

"The UK operations team and duty officer in conjunction with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in the UK and China are continuing to try to make contact with the group and will provide updates as and when information becomes available."

The 19 tourists were customers of Kuoni's "Travel Collection" service, which offers luxury eco-tours to unusual destinations. It is unclear whether they are the same group mentioned by China's Xinhua state news agency, which said that 15 Britons “were out of reach on Tuesday morning in Wenchuan”, the epicentre of the earthquake.

The travel association Abta said that it had polled its 50 members who offer tours in China after yesterday's tremor to find out how many Britons might be in the affected areas. The death toll in Sichuan has 12,000 and thousands more are trapped in the rubble of collapsed schools and other buildings.

Abta said today that it had heard from six of those 50 companies, which had a total of 100 customers in the region as of yesterday, all of whom were safe and well.

But an Abta spokeswoman said that communications difficulties meant that other groups in remote areas may not yet have been able to get in touch. The number of independent British travellers in the region is also unknown.

"We cannot say that all have been accounted for," said the spokeswoman, Frances Tuke.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised against all but essential travel to Sichuan province.

An FCO spokeswoman said today: “We have no confirmed reports of any Britons being hurt in the earthquake. We are working on trying to track down all the Britons in the area.”

The Foreign Office published the number of its consular helpline in Beijing – 0086 105 192 4499 – for people to contact if they think their loved ones may have been caught up in the disasters.

Abta said that Britons made a total of 320,000 visits to China last year and interest has been even higher this year with the approach of the Olympics.

The panda reserves of Sichuan province are a popular destination for nature-loving tourists, especially the Wolong nature reserve in Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the quake.

The giant pandas' natural habitat has been steadily destroyed by farming and deforestation in lowland areas but it clings on in mountainous areas of Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu provinces. The Wolong panda sanctuary has about 128 of the iconic bears, more than half the country's captive population.

The Abta spokeswoman said that UK tour operators in Sichuan had said that the pandas had survived the earthquake unscathed.

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