The devastating earthquake that rocked China this week continues to send shock waves -- literally and figuratively.

Yesterday afternoon, an aftershock measuring magnitude 5.5 rattled parts of central Sichuan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A number of vehicles were buried on a road leading to the epicenter, and casualties were unknown.

A world away, Chinese students and faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh watch news reports on television and desperately scan the Internet for details from their homeland. Since Monday, when the magnitude 7.9 quake occurred, communications with friends and family have been difficult, at best.

The official death toll rose to about 22,069 yesterday, and another 14,000 still were buried in Sichuan. Ten people were pulled to safety yesterday.

Rui Wu, 25, came to Pittsburgh two years ago from Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, 50 miles from the quake's epicenter. When her phone started ringing early Monday morning, she ignored it. Ms. Wu, who earned a master's degree from the foreign language program at Pitt last month and is a part-time faculty member, teaching Chinese, wanted to sleep in.

Finally, she checked her messages and learned that her friends were trying to alert her to the awful news.

"I was so scared and panicked," she said. "Parents, grandparents, all my relatives, all my friends. I browsed the news, but I couldn't get in touch with my daddy. I started to cry."

The next day, her father called her. He had been working on the 11th floor of a building that was shaken by the tremor, but he was all right.

"I was thinking about the worst situation," said Ms. Wu, who is away from home for the first time in her life. "But I'm very lucky.

"The problem is I can't really help."

Members of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Pitt share the feeling of helplessness. If they were there, they said, they would donate food, water and blood. They would be helping to dig through crumbled buildings.

But from so far away, all they can do is send money.

Jing Wang, 24, treasurer of the association, has organized a relief fund. People wishing to send donations are being asked to make checks payable to CSSA and send them to China Earthquake Relief at 3725 Dawson St., Apt. 1, Pittsburgh, 15213.

More than 4 million apartments and homes have been damaged or destroyed in Sichuan province, according to Housing Minister Jiang Weixin. The water supply situation is "extremely serious" in Sichuan, and not flowing at all in 20 cities and counties.

Caring for the untold tens of thousands or more survivors across the earthquake zone is stretching government resources.

Among the hardest hit have been China's children. The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings collapsed in the quake -- destroying about 6,900 classrooms -- and severely punish anyone responsible for shoddy construction.

Ying Yang, 24, a member of the student and scholars association, said the group is aware of how the children have been affected and hopes to raise enough money from Pittsburgh to fund an elementary school for orphans. The school that would bear the name "Pittsburgh," she said.

"We cannot offer any physical help," Ms. Yang said. "All the way from the United States, what we can do is donate money."

Xiaojing Wang, 32, a member of the Pitt faculty, is from Lu Shan province, less than 250 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. His parents -- mother Guirong Zhang, 65, and father Houchun Wang, 68 -- came to Pittsburgh from there two months ago to see him receive his doctorate in human genetics from Pitt.

"My parents and several of my brothers are still there," Mrs. Zhang said in an interview with her son translating. "My first reaction was to confirm the safety of family and friends back home. That really was my first concern."

"We tried to call, but for the first five hours there was almost no contact between the Sichuan province and the rest of the world," the elder Mr. Wang said.

When they finally got through, the family learned that their rural town had been rattled, but their loved ones were safe.

"Only seven people in our hometown died," Mr. Wang said.

As the association members focus on fund raising and the relief that so many of their friends and family members survived, there are still moments of anxiety. Ms. Wang, the organization's treasurer, has a friend whom she has not heard from since the quake occurred.

There is no evidence that Li Xie, 23, a graduate student in Pitt's physics department, is hurt or missing. But she went home to Jiangxi province two weeks ago, after her finals, and none of her friends have heard from her.

"We still cannot get in touch with her," said Ms. Wang. "But we keep trying. We don't know where she was when the earthquake occurred, and we have no phone number for her in China."

It's possible that Ms. Xie was traveling through China by train or bus when the quake struck. Or she might be safe and totally unaware that people back in Pittsburgh are concerned about her.

"We hope for the best," Ms. Wang said.