We had another earthquake today. It woke us up sometime between six and six-thirty this morning. Not being a morning person, I don’t recall the exact time but the news reports tell me that it started at 6:11. It didn’t feel as strong or last as long as the one on March 20th.

I’ve been told that the quake was centred around the same area as the one from March 20th, and had a magnitude of 5.7 (update: some places are reporting 5.3). There’s a map here. I tried to go back to sleep, but there were a number of aftershocks that kept interrupting. Under different circumstances I’d have appreciated the full body massage.

Jarrod didn’t want to go to school but we convinced him that it would be better for him to go to than to stay at home while we went to work.

The railways are shut down, and since many of our students take the train as part of their morning commute, a lot of them haven’t made it to school this morning. Right now the teachers are writing down the attendance on the staffroom blackboard. It seems to be a contest to see whose class has the least students. The worst so far, with 17 out of 24 classes reporting, is 19 students absent. The best attended class has only 6 absent. These are from classes of 40 students, give or take a couple.

If the trains start running before 1pm, students will be required to come to school. Right now the head teachers are deciding whether we have enough students to proceed with classes.

8:45am: with all classes reporting, we have a total of 257 students absent out of a total student body of 957. This brings the average class size down to 29 students, a number that’s more in line with what I was used to in Canada.

9:10am: another aftershock. Teachers are on edge.