British survivors today spoke of their perilous ordeal near the epicentre of the earthquake in China after finally being airlifted to safety.

The group of 19 tourists had been visiting a Panda reserve when the earthquake struck Sichuan province on Monday forcing them to run for their lives as “mountains exploded” around them.

After three days stranded aboard their coach, a helicopter located them in the early hours of this morning and airlifted them to Chengdue, the Sichuan capital.

From the Minshan Hotel this afternoon they relived their adventures and spoke of the fears they had for their lives.

Diane Atkins, from Portchester, Hants, said she knew something was amiss when a group of Pandas she had been watching eat bamboo began anxiously pacing about their enclosure.

Maureen Baker, from Romford, Essex, was washing her hands in the bathroom at the Panda reserve in Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the earthquake, when it struck. She was convinced she was going to die.

“All the floor was moving up and my husband was running towards me panic-stricken. Rocks were falling then we looked up and the mountain just seemed to explode,” she said.

“There were boulders coming down, the trees were getting chopped down the mountainside and we just ran into a panda bear enclosure. My husband shielded me and it all just came over the top of us. We thought we were going to be buried alive.”

Fellow tourist Barry Jackson described the moment it struck: “Suddenly we heard this horrendous noise. You can’t describe what it was like. And the ground was shaking underneath you. The first thing that we all thought to do was to run.”

Boarding their coach they attempted to navigate through the crumbling countryside to the hotel they were due to stay in. But it, along with the village, was flattened.

The 19-strong group and guides were forced to stay on their bus armed with duvets and other supplies salvaged from the village.

Their ordeal was far from over however. Mobile phone masts were down, roads were destroyed, villages were flattened and heavy rain was falling.

Mrs Baker said that as they sat on their coach waiting to be rescued, the level of water in a nearby river continued to rise.

“Each day we’d look at this gorge and see it rising,” she told Sky News. “At one point we thought ‘we’ve survived the earthquake but we’re going to get flooded out’ because also we heard at the top of the hill there was a big lake that was fit to burst. So we had great fear of trying to sleep at night time as we thought we were going to get flooded."

After three nights stranded without communications the 19-strong group were airlifted to Chengue at about 4am GMT this morning and were able to make contact with anxious loved ones in Britain.

Diane Atkins’ daughter, Lisa Staples recalled receiving a phone call from her mother.

“She said it’s me, we’re safe. It’s not often I am speechless,” Ms Staples from Portsmouth said. “She had to repeat it before I could take it in. She told me they were being airlifted out.”

Ms Staples said her mother next phoned at about 6.45am from the four-star Minshan Hotel in Chengdu.

From his hotel room last night Mr Atkins, 64, a former postmaster, spoke of his relief at being safe. “We’ve had an awful experience. This is the first true sleep I will have had in three days.”

Mrs Atkins, 63, said she was astounded the Chinese authorities had been able to locate and rescue them.

"I'm amazed that it all happened so quickly - because the devastation throughout China, in that area that we were in, is horrendous. And for them to have got us out so quickly is amazing,” she said.

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