In a tale of extraordinary human survival, an Indonesian teenager has managed to keep himself alive for 49 days while floating adrift in a flimsy hut for thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.

Aldi Novel Adilang, 19, was working lonely shifts as a lamp keeper for a floating fish trap, 80 miles off the coast of Indonesia’s North Sulawesi in July when strong winds broke the mooring and pushed him far out to sea.

He was eventually rescued in late August by a ship sailing under a Panama flag that picked him up in the waters near Guam and then dropped him off in Japan, reported the Jakarta Post.

Mr Aldi, who was finally reunited with his family in early September, had struggled to keep his spirits up when 10 passing ships failed to spot his plight, revealed an Indonesian consular official in the southern Japanese city of Osaka.

“Aldi said he had been scared and often cried when adrift. Every time he saw a large ship, he said he was hopeful, but more than ten ships had passed him, none of them stopped,” said Fajar Firdaus, a diplomat.