Miracle baby found alive on floating mattress

A 20-day-old baby was found alive floating on a mattress in her parents’ damaged restaurant in northern Malaysia after the region was slammed by tidal waves, it was reported today.

S Tulasi was sleeping in a room at the restaurant when the huge waves struck on Sunday in the holiday resort of Penang. The swirling waters swept her parents out of the restaurant.

Luckily, her parents later managed to claw their way back to the badly-damaged building.

“Thank God the mattress was floating in about five-foot deep water and my baby was crying,” the baby’s father, A Suppiah, told the national news agency Bernama.

But others were not so lucky. Fisherman Zulkfli Mohd Noor, 42, and his wife lost their five children to the tidal waves.

Zulkifli said his family was collecting fish left stranded on the seabed when the sea water was briefly sucked out to sea before coming pounding back in the tidal waves, the Malay-language Utusan Malaysia reported.

“I did not for one moment think the dead fishes were a sign that a tsunami was going to crash into us just seconds later,” Zulkifli told the paper.

Malaysia’s death toll stands at 60, with 100 more missing.