Miracle Girl Thought Lost in Indonesian Tsunami Seven Years Ago Returns Home

Most people can still remember the horrific images that emanated from television sets the day after Christmas back in 2004 following the tsunami that caused destruction throughout a large swath of countries bordering the Indian Ocean. Over 230,000 people were killed, one of whom was thought to be an eight year old girl named Pernamawati. She was with her mother and two younger sisters, according to the Indonesian news agency Antara News, when the first big wave struck. Her mother tried desperately to hold on to all three of her children, but Wati, as she was known, slipped from her grip and disappeared into the rushing water. Due to the extreme conditions in which the child had disappeared, her family assumed she had been killed, though no body had ever been found.

But now, in an unexplainable twist of fate, Wati has returned home, seven years after disappearing into the ugly waters that invaded Ujong Baroh, the village where she and her family lived. And so far, she's not been able to offer any explanation of how she survived, or even where she's been since that fateful day.

According to News, the girl's grandfather, Ibrahim, was visited recently by an acquaintance of his who had brought a teenage girl with him who he'd found sitting mute in a local coffee shop. Most had assumed she was a simple beggar, but the acquaintance thought he saw something familiar about her, so he brought her to see Ibrahim to see if he had any thoughts on the matter.

As the conversation ensued, the girl finally opened up and told the two that she had come to find her family, but didn't know how to go about it as she didn't know her last name, or the name of her family. All she knew was the name of her home town. She'd come by bus she said, though gave no word regarding where she'd come from. As it turned out, she did know one name, and that was Ibrahim, which caused the older man to wonder if it was possible the young girl was in fact his granddaughter.

To find out for sure, he took her to the rest of the family, including her mother and two sisters, and it was there that it was confirmed (by a unique mole and scar above her left eye) that Wati, was in indeed their long lost little girl, now a fifteen year old teen.

As to how she survived the tsunami, and where she's been since, they only information she's been able to divulge is that she doesn't know how she survived and she's been living in various districts in Aceh province in a constant search to find her family.

And now she has, just days before the anniversary of her disappearance.