Tsunami Survivor Raudhatul Jannah Found Alive 10 Years Later

NBC News.com

A girl thought to have died in the Indian Ocean tsunami has been reunited with her family after being found alive nearly a decade later, her parents said Friday. Raudhatul Jannah was just four when she was swept away as the disaster struck Indonesia on Boxing Day in 2004. After a month, her relatives assumed she was among the more than 230,000 killed. But in June, her brother spotted someone who appeared to be his long-lost sister walking down the street, according to German news agency DPA.

Now 14 years old, Jannah was being raised by an elderly woman, named Maryam, almost 80 miles south of her family. She now lives with her biological parents, father Septi Rangkuti and mother Jamaliah. "This is a miracle from God," her mother told DPA. Her relatives do not plan to carry out a DNA test. "It's a mother's instinct," Jamaliah Jannah told Reuters. “I knew she was the one and we also saw her photos from childhood when we picked her up, that's her."

 

ACHWA NUSSA / EPA

Jamaliah Jannah, left, hugs her daughter Raudhatul, center, after being reunited with her in Meulaboh, Indonesia.