UNSURE whether her son was dead or alive after Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the mother of a teacher from Orpington found herself ‘living on a knife-edge’.

Adam Pearson left the United Kingdom just under a year ago to teach English in Kuji, a small town in north east Japan, and things were going well for the former St Olave’s pupil.

But then just four days after his 30th birthday an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale rocked the country and Mr Pearson’s mum Dawn did not hear from him.

He was placed on the official missing list and Ms Pearson feared she might never see her son again.

Ms Pearson said: “It has been like living on a knife edge.

“There was a point when we did not know where he was and whether he was alive or dead.”

Her son eventually managed to email her after one of his colleagues had the idea of running a computer and router by connecting it to their car battery.

The 66-year-old added: “I was ecstatic when I found out he was alive “We did not care what condition he was in as long as he was alive.

“But there is also the guilty feeling that your child is alive when there are others still waiting for news.

“I cannot tell you the relief.

“The not knowing eats away at you.”

Posting on his blog yesterday (March 13), Mr Pearson talks of his shock about being caught up in the devestation.

He said: “It's very difficult to know what to write, or to feel.

“I and all the people I know here are alive and well, and so many are not.

”For us, we have only started to realise since getting electricity and internet access back what kind of scale this thing has been of, the sheer gargantuan awfulness of it; we are behind the people at home in that respect.”

The former Bromley Council worker still has no running water in his home but has managed to see the scale of the earthquake as electricity and internet connection are up and running again.

He said: “What to us had basically seemed a local disaster suddenly was revealed as national, even international in scope.

“At one and the same time, I am:
(a) glad I'm alive
(b) guilty that I haven't suffered more
(c) shocked at the horrible pictures on the news

(d) pettily frustrated that life hasn't returned completely to normal and that the weekend's events can't be filed away under 'Holiday Adventures'
(e) jumpy at anything that sounds like an aftershock and scared at any actual aftershock (we have a 70 per cent chance of getting a magnitude 7 one in the next two days apparently)
(f) bizarrely thrilled at being close to the centre of world news for the first and probably only time in my life
(g) touched at how many people care about me when it really, actually, comes down to it.”

Anyone wanting to donate to the relief effort can go to 2hj.org/index.php/get_involved/donate_money or google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html