Indonesian teen survives after 49 days adrift at sea

jakarta — An Indonesian teenager survived seven weeks adrift at sea after his tiny fishing trap lost its moorings and ended up some 2,500km away in waters near the Pacific island of Guam, his family said on Monday.

Aldi Novel Adilang’s harrowing tale began in mid-July when the 18-year-old was working solo on a fishing hut anchored about 125km 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 said.

Rompongs are a traditional form of trapping fish in Indonesia, but are often unmanned, secured by buoys and ropes. 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 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, Mirza Nurhidayat, the Indonesian consul general in Osaka, told the