An 8-year-old girl who was swept away from her mother's arms during the 2004 tsunami that hit Indonesia has been found alive and reunited with her parents, according to the Indonesian state news agency Antara.
The girl, who was identified by state news only as Wati, now 15, was reportedly discovered nearly seven years after the tsunami devastated the coastlines of Asia.
An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of between 9.1 to 9.3 strikes the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, and triggered a deadly tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Wati was in the village of Ujong Baroh when flood waters came crashing in.
"Her mother, Yusniar, was trying to take her and her two siblings to a safe place, but somehow she lost her grip on her mother's arm and was carried away by the rushing waters, leaving her mother powerless to help her," the state news agency said. "Yusniar was able to save her two other children, but she and the rest of the family eventually had to resign themselves to the notion that Wati was lost as she never returned nor had anybody in the neighborhood seen her again dead or alive."
The now teenage Wati was spotted in a coffee shop near her home in West Aceh, Indonesia.
She said that "she had come [there] by bus from Banda Aceh and was trying to find her way back home but did not know how. She also could not remember any of her parents' or relatives' names except Ibrahim," according to Antara.
She was sitting in silence in the coffee shop, assumed to be a beggar, the news agency reported.
Later that day, Wati and someone she met showed up at a man's house.
His name? Ibrahim.
"After listening to the acquaintances account, Ibrahim immediately sensed the girl could be his long-lost grandchild and, after a closer look at the dark-skinned girl, was indeed convinced she was Wati who went missing in the tsunami seven years ago," the news agency reported.
Ibrahim called her parents to immediately come meet her, according to the agency, and the parents confirmed it was their daughter because of a small mole and scar that she had as a child.
Antara said they were told no other details about what happened to the girl when she was swept away other than she had been in several areas throughout Indonesia's Aceh province after the tsunami.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Sweet.
WAY COOL!
They can all thank God for bringing the girl back alive. Of course, they can also ask him why the #@&% it took so long.
You know, nepa . . . some people would gripe if they were hung with a NEW rope. Others would gripe if they got a FREE 4-star meal–because it wasn't 5-star.
and why he killed 200,000 of their neighbors/friends/family ...
Well put...All the jebus followers will say how this was gawds work and how wonderful he/she is all the while never mentioning that fact that he/she could have prevented the disaster in the first place.
I'm pretty sure they'll be thanking Buddha. Social moron.
We are thankful for your comment, Andera M, about chunks of childhood gone. Naturally occurring memory loss can be caused by brain injury from blows or be a way the mind protects us from knowledge of deathly betrayls of trust committed upon our innocent gentle person. There is also electric and suger shock, and drugs and hypnotic drugs and hypnosis used by controllers to make us,when under the effects of these, submit and perform and then forget it all so we can't know to hold them accountable. Everyone in the universe needs to know this for their own protection and compre hension. We are thankful a child was found and accepted by her people who were glad the had her. Some little children only know their mothers name is "mama" and their world is their neighborhood, their house and their ma in it. Not much info to get home on. And parents suffer memory loss too. Merry Christmas from mama.
I smell a movie!
Events like this prove that god is still there.. I m very happy for the Wati and her Family...
Right! After all, who else could cause such devastation and kill so many people so quickly? Praise his holy name !!!!!!!
Events like this prove random occurances sometimes have favorable outcomes. What would prove God exists is if all 200,000 people rose from the grave.
Let's see, I think the answer that is HUMANS! But ,you blame whomever you want. Drive your SUV to work and keep your heat turned up all winter, while we continue to suck oil out of the earth leaving massive voids inside our planet. Global warmin, Earthquakes and Volcanic eruptions must be blamed on someone other than ourselves. It's a feel good story (lacking much detail) and all you have to say is something snide.
Thanks be to God!
Yeah, because "God" would choose to "bless" this one person when he allowed a tsunami to kill hundreds of thousands of other people. Do you see how stupid that is?
Thanks be to god? Really? What about the other estimated 200,000 people the tsunami killed? If we are to really give god thanks for this one girl, you must also thank him for killing the others as well. What an awesome god you have there...
What a joyful story!!
Yes. God had everything to do with finding the girl and nothing to do with the tsunami that got the girl lost in the first place. Makes perfect sense.
Yep...especially in an area not known to be overly Christian. But maybe God thew the tsunami their way as punishment...or just because he's a jerk.
Yep...especially in an area not known to be overly Christian. But maybe God threw the tsunami their way as punishment...or just because he's a jerk.
Coolbeans
The story sounds very confusing to me, so I must recommend a DNA test to both the girl and the parents.
I'm sure they'll get right on that Sarah, just because you told them to.
Sarah, if you find it confusing that I'll bet if you were in any kind of situation, you wouldn't be able to find your way home.
When I was 7 years old and nothing traumatic happened to me except that I got separated from my friends. I was new in the neighborhood and we had taken a walk. I could not find my way home. I started to cry and an adult came up to me and told me that I lived right across the street from where I was standing. I was lost and nothing traumatic happened, so you can imagine how that little girl felt.
I was there in Thailand and was personally caught in the wave. Afterwards while at the hospital with my wife and our friend, I handed our cell phone from one person to another as they called home to tell loved ones they had lost a child or family member. My only wish was that just one of them would be wrong and that their loved one was perhaps at another hospital. Having lived through this I can very easily see how this happened. There was so much attention was placed on finding relatives of the western children that were seperated, very little was focussed on the local populations. What a great New Years gift to this family. For those who commentented that they could not understand how this happened I would encourage you to get out and travel more and if you can not aford that read more about other parts of the world. May we all recieve and give such wonderful gifts this Holiday.
How did you like that "gift" in the form of a tsunami? Wouldn't it have been a gift if it never happened in the first place?
wisely stated, thanks
He wasn't saying the Tsunami was a gift, he said the sotry about the parents finding their child after so many years was a gift. Duh
Praise be to Allah
For what? Sending a tsunami in the first place? Or do you think God would save just this one person when he allowed so many others to die?
wasnt him... it was G-d!!
Why don't people use apostrophes anymore? What acquaintance? Or was it more than one? I don't know because the writer didn't use an apostrophe. Who was the girl with? Did I miss something? We need editors and proofreaders on the Internet or our language will devolve into idiocy.
Since you bring up apostrophes, do not forget commas. You are missing a couple.
Finally ... an article about a positive, happy event. Why is stuff like this so hard to come by?!