An Acehnese who was plucked out of the ocean by a Malaysian fishing boat five days after surviving the Dec 26 earthquake and tsunami disaster will return home today, reports said.

Malawati Daud, 23, who is 18 weeks pregnant, has been praying that her 25-year-old husband Zainuddin Amin and other family members also survived the disaster that has claimed over 100,000 Indonesians, mainly in the Aceh province, the area hardest hit by the disaster.

"I hope my family will be at the airport to welcome me home tomorrow," she was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times .

"I am aware of the destruction, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that there will be someone from my family to greet me when I arrive in Aceh Jaya," she said.

Malawati would fly from the Bayan Lepas International Airport in northern Penang state and stay in Medan before being taken home to Aceh Jaya, the Indonesian Consulate-General's First Secretary G B Sasongko told the Bernama news agency.

"We will check on the situation in Aceh first before taking her to her village. Aceh representatives in Medan have yet to trace her family," he said.

Saved by coconut tree

Malawati, her husband and her six siblings were swept away by strong waves on Dec 26.

"I was lucky that I managed to hang on to a coconut tree," she said.

A Malaysian fishing boat rescued Malawati who had been drifting in the Indian Ocean for five days not far from the shores of Aceh.

The gutsy housewife, sunburnt and suffering fish bites, survived by eating fruit off the uprooted palm trunk she was clinging to and floating packets of instant noodles.