Lucky twist reunites mother with son missing since tsunami

HAYATUN NAFIS walked the streets of the shattered city of Banda Ached for more than seven weeks searching for her 10-year-old son, missing since the tsunami struck. A stroke of luck yesterday finally led them to a tearful reunion.

“Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God,” Hayatun cried, holding tightly onto her son, Iwan, and smelling his hair and hands. “Look at me, my child, my darling.”

The reunion was a rare bright spot in Indonesia’s Aceh province, where the December 26 earthquake and killer waves left more than 200,000 people dead or missing.