Man lived on coconuts for two weeks

Jocelyn Gecker, Banda Aceh

His prayers were answered when a container ship, Al Yamamah, spotted him on Sunday, hauled him aboard and brought him to Malaysia last night.

Ari, 21, was working on a construction site in the Indonesian province of Aceh on St Stephen’s Day when the tsunami swept him and his friends out to sea. “I recall seeing four of my friends hanging onto wood but we drifted away from each other ” Ari said. He said he saw many bodies and debris floating around him.

“I prayed and prayed. I told God I don’t want to die. I worried about my elderly parents and asked for a chance to take care of them,” he said. On the fifth day, he saw a huge fishing raft and swam out to it, thinking he would be rescued. The raft was unmanned but it contained, bottles of fresh water. He ate coconuts he found floating in the sea.

He said many ships passed by without noticing him until the Al Yamamah came along. The ship’s captain, New Zealander John Kennedy said he did not expect to find any survivors as nearly two weeks had passed since the tsunami. The crew sounded a whistle anyway.

“To our surprise, a frail-looking man emerged,” Mr Kennedy said. He said Ari looked fine except for parched lips.

As he was taken to a hospital for a check-up, Ari could only think of his parents.

“I pray that my family in Aceh is also as lucky as me and survived the disaster.”

Ari is the third Indonesian tsunami survivor rescued from the sea and brought to Malaysia.

A Malaysian tuna ship on December 30 rescued a pregnant woman who held on to a floating palm tree for five days. The other survivor was a man from Aceh who drifted for eight days before being spotted by a cargo ship.

More than 100,000 Indonesians died in the tsunami.

In Malaysia 68 died.