Teen rescued after 49 days adrift at sea

An Indonesian teenager survived seven weeks adrift at sea after his tiny fishing trap lost its moorings and ended up some 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) away in waters near the Pacific island of Guam, his family said yesterday.

Aldi Novel Adilang's harrowing tale began in mid-July when the 18-year-old was working solo on a fishing hut anchored about 125 kilometres (77 miles) off Indonesia's Sulawesi island.

His job was to keep the vessel's lamps lit to attract fish. Its owner would reportedly come by weekly to drop off food, clean water, fuel and other supplies.

The floating fishing trap, known as a rompong, had no engine and was anchored to the seabed with a long rope, but heavy winds knocked it off its moorings and sent Adilang out to sea. Local media reported that the owner of Adilang's rompong had as many as 50 moored in the surrounding waters.

"His boss told my husband that he went missing," Adilang's mother Net Kahiking told AFP from her home in Sulawesi. "So we just surrendered to God and kept praying hard." The teen, who only had enough food to last several days, survived by catching fish, said Mirza Nurhidayat, the Indonesian consul general in Osaka.