An Indonesian girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean by the devastating 2004 tsunami has reunited with her family on Friday in Banda Aceh.
Now 14, Mary Yuranda showed up at a cafe in the city of Meulaboh, in the tsunami-battered Aceh province, looking for her parents. She broke down in tears after tracking down her parents, who had long lost hope of finding her alive.
A local taxi driver identified her family from details she had provided, ending such a long time in which she lived with a widow, whom she was called as "Wati", and forced her to beg, sometimes beating her and keeping her on the streets until 1 AM. Wati began her search, telling people she thought her grandfather was "Ibrahim."
"When I saw my mother, I knew it was her," said Mary. "I just knew."
"When she saw her mother she yelled 'mama' and ran toward her," her father, Tarmius, told AFP by telephone.
Mary's mother, Yusnidar, said her daughter had grown so much that she had not immediately recognised the girl.
"The birth marks on her belly, plus a mole and a scar on her face proved that the little girl was mine," said Yusnidar, 35.
"I cannot tell you how grateful I am," she added.
The parents said the girl did not want to speak to reporters and was recovering from frequent beatings by the widow. Mary was separated from them after the family was swept away during the the December 26, 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
"We were all in a pick-up truck, trying to out race the big waves that were headed our way," Tarmius, Mary's father said.
"We had hardly driven out of the village when we were hit by the first big wave," he recalled.
 |
| AP |
The truck with the family of two daughters and a baby boy was swept several kilometres away and came to a stop only after hitting a two-storey house.
"We tried to climb on top of the house, but my wife and baby got trapped between the car and the house building.
"I managed to get my daughters on top of the house and grabbed the baby just before another wave washed away my wife and daughters," he said.
"When I returned home that night I tried to find my wife and two daughters," he said, adding that he had found his wife the next day.
The pair began a search for the lost girls, traveling to different districts whenever there was word of survivors being found.
Their eldest daughter is still missing.
Banda Aceh was among the hardest hit during the disaster that killed 220,000 people in several nations from the magnitude 9.1 quake and the tsunami that followed. Indonesia accounted for three-quarters of the casualties.
