Some schools reopen and garbage collection resumes in Japan’s areas hardest-hit by New Year’s quake

TOKYO (AP) — Two weeks after the deadly New Year’s Day earthquake struck Japan’s north-central region of Noto, some schools reopened and limited garbage collection resumed Monday in rare hopeful signs amid the devastation that thousands of people still face in the area.

The magnitude 7.6 earthquake on Jan. 1 killed at least 222 people and injured thousands. More than 20 are still missing.

About 20,000 people, most of whom had their homes damaged or destroyed, have been sheltering in nearly 400 school gymnasiums, community centers an other makeshift facilities, according to the central government and the Ishikawa prefecture disaster data released Monday.

Classes restarted at nearly 20 elementary, junior high and high schools Monday in some of the hardest-hit towns, including Wajima and Noto, and many students returned, but some, whose families were badly hit by the quake, were absent.

“I’m so glad to see you are back safely,” Keiko Miyashita, principal of the Kashima elementary school in the town of Wajima, on the northern coast of the Noto Peninsula, told schoolchildren.

Most of the schools in the prefecture have restarted but about 50 are indefinitely closed due to quake damage. At Ushitsu elementary school in the town of Noto, children gathered for just one hour Monday. Classes are to fully resume next week.

A part of a local train line through the town of Nanao also resumed Monday.

Garbage collectors were out for the first time since the quake in the town of Wajima, a relief for many who were increasingly worried about deteriorating sanitation.

But many residents remain without running water or electricity — more than 55,000 homes are without running water and 9,100 households have no electricity — and water pipe